I took my wedding ring off after 35 years  on December 21, 2024….

I felt so much clarity when I took it off. 

I was hiking through paradise rim, when I clearly heard my inner voice say that I was done. 

I was done with the pain of the past. 

Looking at that ring brought up so much pain when I made the decision to get married.

Four months pregnant at 18, scared, ashamed, and left with few options. 

I took the “right” option. 

And I do not regret it- not for a minute.

But there is still so much despair and hopelessness wrapped around my finger. 

The initial contract was made out of obligation, guilt and shame. 

It didn’t represent love, the anticipation of creating a home together and sharing your life with someone who is “your person.” 

And yet,I am now living with a man who has sloughed off the rough exterior to expose a man of honor, the one who represents who he truly is, and always was but simply forgot. 

He is not the man from 35 years ago, the one that was angry at the world and felt like the world gave him a bad hand of cards. 

I am not the woman I was so many years ago that thought she had no options- I now know that I have unlimited options. The one that let people treat her with disrespect and unkindness. The one that didn’t love herself so the world reflected back to her what she felt. 

I now have a man who treats me with kindness and respect most of the time- with an occasional visit from the man of the past. 

I am a woman who is strong and has boundaries along with kindness and love and respects her man with an occasional visit from the scared woman of the past. 

My life is radically different now. 

I feel so much abundance from every aspect of my life. 

Rich in relationships within my family. I honestly cannot believe that those relationships are the same ones from even three years ago. I delight in seeing my adult children, and they honestly delight in seeing me. 

I love laughing and playing and having real and raw conversations with them. There is an energy of trust and transparency that wasn’t there even three years ago. 

I see and acknowledge that the more I heal within, the more the external world shows up to support the new version of me. 

I feel abundant in resources and finances even though my account presently is significantly less than it was a few years ago. 

I believe that is true financial freedom- when it doesn’t matter what the bank account balance is or where the next paycheck comes from- that true freedom and peace is ever present. 

Leaving today around noon and I honestly don’t know how I am going to finance my next couple of months and won’t know for a few more hours. Even with that- peace runs through my body and mind and tells me all is well, all is well. 

My husband didn’t see that my ring was not on my hand until two days ago. 

Not sure why I didn’t tell him. Most of the time I really didn’t think about it- but the lack of transparency is out of integrity with who I am. I guess it comes back to the conflict issue that I wrote about yesterday- I didn’t want him to suffer anymore than he was. 

And yet that very vibration and attitude says, “you can’t handle it- you are weak.” And that is as far from the truth as it can come. He is strong and valiant and honorable when I allow him to be and am willing to see it. 

I think that is why I want to fly to the other side of the world. To get a bigger and broader perspective about what I really have and what I really desire to have in my life. 

Leaving the ring behind and allowing space and room for what has always been to flow in. 

Yesterday Dan asked me to marry him on Dixie Rock.

I said “yes," and he slipped on the most beautiful dainty turquoise ring on my finger and it fit perfectly. 

Yes...the most powerful word in the world. 

Saying yes to love, saying yes to life. 

I am now taking this new ring with me to Bali. This new commitment and this new love and holding it within me to expand into whatever is meant to happen. 

I am moving past the last lingering trauma and victimhood in a space ready to hold love. 

Funny how you can get looped into trauma work over and over forgetting that the very reason why you face your pain is to make more room for love. 

I am ready to handle it and hold it. 

And the first person that I get to hear and hold and love is within. 

I think I will go have a love affair with myself down in Bali. It’s going to be a veracious, passionate, and ecstatic love affair- things are gonna get wild. 

Or not….

Maybe I will simply walk with mother earth and drink in her beauty and goodness and grace. 

Yeah- probably that one, or maybe both. 

Turning worry into wonder for this new adventure. 

Ready….Set….Jump!!!