inspiredodyssey daily prompt, Featured

Time for Self-Care – A Requirement – Not a Choice

We choose to do things. Every day we make choices about whether or not we go to work, meet people, call people, go to that place, make that meal. But are there choices you find yourself regretting that you didn’t make that day? That USED to be self-care for me. I would run myself ragged taking care of everyone else, every single day, while neglecting the ONE important person in the whole world it matters to. Me. My body. My soul. Time for God. Time for peace. Time for rest. REST. The thing we neglect so easily, even though it is such an important part of self-care.

With the work I am doing with my therapist, I am learning about different faces of self-care. I uncovered a repressed memory from my childhood in which the girls in my class made up a horrible name for me and said awful things about this person. Because I wanted so badly to fit in, I actually joined in the ridicule. Until one day, one of the girls couldn’t take the guilt anymore. She pulled me aside and said, “The person they are calling fat, ugly and disgusting is YOU.”

I was humiliated. Destroyed. For a chubby 9-year-old just trying to fit in, I was absolutely crushed. I cried for months afterward. I never told my parents either, simply because I didn’t. What could they do? Call their parents? Make the girls hate me more?? So I swallowed it. Stuffed it away. Apparently, I stuffed it SO deep down that when the language resurfaced in adulthood, I was the one saying it. Fat. Ugly. Disgusting. I had taken that brutal knife and turned it toward myself. Funny thing, that transference, isn’t it?? When a man rejected me – fat, ugly, disgusting. When I gained five pounds of water weight – fat, ugly, disgusting. Over and over again.

Then stepped in Self-Care wearing a Supergirl cape (and NOT that drunk mess 2026 version, I’m talking about my Helen Slater from 1984). I started slowing down. I started really looking at the woman in the mirror I had been calling fat, ugly and disgusting.

My therapist gave me a practice. TWO TO FIVE MINUTES A DAY. Tops. THAT’S IT. Start one practice that you do EVERY DAY. No negotiation. It is NOT a choice. It is a requirement. This is the time I give myself every single morning for self-care. It may not fit inside some perfect little definition of what self-care is “supposed” to look like, but this is what I am STARTING with. And so far, I haven’t missed a day in eight days.

Last Saturday, that little non-negotiable practice took me somewhere I had somehow managed not to really see in the entire three years I have lived here: City Lake Park in my own town. I stopped. I walked. I looked at the water, the fountain, the trees. I was there. And what started as one little act of self-care somehow opened into an entire morning of peace.

That matters because I have had other routines I tried to keep. I had a night cream routine, a brush-my-teeth-with-the-new-fancy-electric-toothbrush routine, a make-sure-all-my-makeup-gets-wiped-off routine, a leave-in-conditioner-stays-on-my-scalp-giving-me-that-cool-freshness-every-night routine. GREAT routines. Did I stick to them? NOPE. Cream, toothbrush, special makeup remover, leave-in conditioner – all sitting on a shelf, abandoned.

This form of non-negotiable self-care is what my former health coach used to constantly drill into my head. Her mandate was ONE non-negotiable walk a day. It didn’t matter how long. It only mattered that you DID IT. I stuck to that really hard for a while, but apparently if there isn’t a drill sergeant screaming at me, I am not doing it.

I think most of us like to believe we have discipline, but honestly? We have selective discipline. Discipline not to have a drink? Sure. I am five years sober. Discipline to keep up with my nightly skincare routine? Not so much.

But I think I have made a real breakthrough with this daily practice because I finally stopped demanding some gigantic transformation from myself. It is a small step. I can’t go to the moon, so I better stop trying. But I can look up at the moon and say, Yes. I see you today. I can give myself two minutes. I can take the walk. I can stop long enough to notice the lake that has been sitting in my own town for three years waiting for me to see it.

And maybe that is what self-care is beginning to mean to me. Not some perfect routine I buy supplies for and abandon on a shelf. Not another giant plan I fail to follow. Just one small thing I refuse to negotiate away.

Because last Saturday, City Lake Park finally saw me.

And, maybe more importantly, I finally saw myself.

inspiredodyssey daily prompt, Featured, Professional Growth

The Right Environment = The Right Mindset

It is almost a no-brainer when people say, “You’ve got to have the right mindset to be successful.” But how exactly is that achieved? What do you do? Where do you start? Do you sit there with ChatGPT and have it create some elaborate 14-step plan for you?

You and I both know, through all the AI nonsense, you are absolutely NOT sticking to that plan.

I recently joined the Small Business Center at a local community college right behind my house. I went to a community college early in my career, and I absolutely loved it. Community colleges really are exactly what they advertise themselves to be: places for the community to learn and grow.

It was extremely serendipitous that I met the director of the Small Business Center while line dancing; yes, line dancing, lol, at the Continuing Education building every Tuesday night. She gave me her card, I came in and signed up, and suddenly I discovered this absolute gold mine of resources available to small businesses in the community, especially entrepreneurs.

So, what the heck does any of this have to do with having the right mindset?

Well, after being NYC-driven for so many years in my career, I am used to going to work. Getting dressed. Leaving the house. Sitting at a desk. Having somewhere I am supposed to be and something I am supposed to accomplish while I am there.

Working from home is an entirely different animal.

It requires an incredible amount of discipline because comfort can absolutely become a HUGE problem when you are trying to be productive. There’s the TV. There’s your ridiculously comfortable bed. There’s the couch calling your name. There’s the kitchen. There’s the random pile of stuff across the room that suddenly becomes incredibly important to organize the second you’re supposed to be doing actual work.

And there goes the productivity plan for the day.

What I’m starting to realize is that, for me, having the right mindset has a whole lot to do with having the right environment.

Mindset is influenced by what is around you.

It doesn’t always come from sitting at home and forcing yourself through sheer willpower to become disciplined overnight. Maybe that works for Wonder Woman and Superman. It does very little for the rest of us.

So I decided to stop fighting myself.

I have blocked out two hours a day, skipping Wednesdays because I actually want to get out and network in the community. Every other weekday morning, somewhere between 8 a.m. and noon, I find two hours to go to the Small Business Center with my laptop and work. Really work.

I bring my notebooks, pens, notepads, highlighters—the whole damn office supply aisle, basically. I even have their desktop computer at my disposal in an Executive Office designed specifically for small business owners.

And guess what?

It’s working.

I have already scheduled a meeting with my second client. I have more usability research hours blocked out. I am sitting down and actually getting things accomplished instead of spending half the morning thinking about everything I should be accomplishing.

I have been more productive than I have been in years.

And I have the miracle of community colleges to thank for part of that. I have the resources available to small businesses here in North Carolina to thank. But I also have to give myself some credit for finally having enough sense to recognize something very simple:

My home is not conducive to productive work.

I love my apartment. It is my sanctuary. It is where I relax, watch movies, write, eat, sleep, and live my life. But maybe that is precisely the problem. My brain knows that place as home.

The Small Business Center feels like work.

The moment I walk through the door with my laptop bag, sit down at a desk, pull out my notebook, and start setting everything up, something switches on in my brain.

Okay. We came here to get shit done.

And suddenly I do.

So, if you want the “right mindset” to be successful, maybe Step One isn’t changing your entire personality, buying another planner, making another vision board, or asking an AI to design the perfect life you’ll abandon by Thursday.

Maybe Step One is much simpler:

Change your environment.

Get the hell out of the house.

Get dressed. Pack your lunch. Grab your laptop. Go to the library, the community college, the Small Business Center, a quiet café, wherever you can sit down and actually feel like you came there to work.

Because sometimes half the battle isn’t convincing your brain to become productive.

Sometimes you just have to put your brain somewhere that productivity makes sense.

And for me?

Apparently, all it took was a laptop, a good ole peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an Executive Office,

and meeting the right woman at line dancing.

Lol.

Stay tuned.

inspiredodyssey daily prompt, Journal

From the Floor of a Jail Cell to the Body of Christ

I think everyone is unique because of their story; what they survived, what broke them, what found them, and what finally brought them home.

Mine was chaos for most of my life. A downward spiral. A wreckage. A long season of self-destruction that felt like it would never end.

And yet tonight, somehow, I came full circle.

Tonight, I took an oath to become a Eucharistic Minister.

Even writing that sentence feels unreal.

I am not going to hide the fact that I am a proud Catholic. In fact, part of the reason I am so unapologetic about it is because of my Muslim heritage. I know the difference now between a faith that made me feel constantly watched, measured, and punished, and a faith that met me in my ruin and loved me anyway.

That is my truth.

I spent my whole life feeling punished by Allah; for every desire, every rebellion, every time I tried to use my voice, every time I dared to want something beyond obedience and fear. But I will say this as plainly as I know how:

Allah didn’t find me on the floor of that jail cell five years ago. Jesus did.

I know the difference because I felt Him.
I called for Him.
I begged for Him.

And there, in the filth and the collapse and the absolute end of myself, I told Him I would never drink again. I vowed myself to Him.

And what I felt back was not condemnation.
Not disgust.
Not punishment.

Just this:

“Follow Me.”

After that, things became very black and white.

Before then, Christianity had mostly come to me through movies, books, and Christian friends. I never knew what church I would choose if I ever became Christian. But once Jesus came for me, it became strangely clear. I didn’t hesitate. I joined the Church He told His apostles to build. I chose the Church that traces itself directly back to them. I chose to be Catholic.

And for a woman whose life has always loved mathematics, precision, and things adding up, the calculations made perfect sense.

That doesn’t mean it was easy.

When I spoke to Father, he asked if my family would be okay with it; almost like he was quietly wondering whether I’d be disowned, or worse. And honestly, if I were living in an Arab country, maybe that fear wouldn’t have been dramatic at all. But I told him what I know to be true: West Indian Muslim culture is often far more Americanized than the most traditional Arab expressions of Islam. And besides, I only really cared what my mother and father thought.

My mother came and supported me.

My father made the trip too, even though he couldn’t quite bring himself to walk into the Catholic church. He stayed in my apartment. But the fact that he came that far, that he came at all, meant everything to me. That was love, too. Imperfect, complicated, but real.

This Easter marks the anniversary of my baptism. And what has happened in just one year is nothing short of a miracle.

I don’t use that word lightly.

So many doors have opened. So many things I thought were dead in me came back to life. I now have a real chance to tell my story of redemption and salvation out loud; the whole ugly, holy thing. The story of how every Easter for fifteen years, I ended up thrown into psych wards in some manic unraveling. How I drank with my pills for over a decade and did nothing with my life except become a burden to my parents. How I sat in sex chatrooms online, showing my body to any man who would give me five minutes of attention, hoping that maybe one of them would stay and save me. How my life split wide open when I married my husband and went on a drug-fueled crime spree that landed me in jail. How that relationship was steeped in abuse. How he introduced me to crack and literally put the crack pipe in my mouth because I refused to touch it myself.

That is part of my story.

So is the shame.
So is the mania.
So is the degradation.
So is the pain.

I am not cleaning that up for anyone’s comfort.

There was anguish for so many years. So much suffering, so much self-hatred, so much wandering around like a ghost in my own life. And all that time, strangely enough, the Catholic Church was just… there. Quietly in the background. Waiting.

There was a church off the main road near the place I went for therapy. I used to go there after drinking an entire carafe of wine, completely numb, trying to sedate myself out of existence. I would sit outside in the garden near a statue of Mary and tell her how ashamed I was; how I felt like I was a disgrace to women everywhere.

Then one day, a verse I had come across somewhere came back into my head:

“Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.”

So I did.

I walked up those church steps for the first time in my life, a complete sinner, and I knocked on the door.

No one answered.

Well, maybe not no one.

The door was open.

And He was there waiting for me.

I walked inside and sat in those pews and cried for an hour. I was in complete awe of what I was feeling, what I was seeing, what had found me there. That was the first of many times I returned to that empty church, carrying all my wreckage with me.

And now?

Now I am living a life that would have been unimaginable to the woman I was back then.

Tomorrow, I begin at a local radio station doing broadcasts for the blind. Every Monday at Mass, I stand at the podium and read Scripture aloud to the congregation. My voice carries now, the same voice I once believed was sinful for a woman to use too proudly, too boldly, too loudly.

And tonight, I was ordained as a Eucharistic Minister.

It is now my privilege to bring Communion to the sick and the homebound, to carry the Body of Christ into places of suffering and loneliness, to do in some small way the work Jesus Himself pioneered.

What an honor.

What a sentence.

From the floor of a jail cell…
to hands that now hold the Body of Christ.

That is my story.

That is what makes me unique.

Not because I am special in some glamorous way. But because grace reached all the way down into a life like mine and pulled me up anyway.

It makes me unique.
It makes me redeemed.
It makes this a story like no other.

inspiredodyssey daily prompt, Inspiration

Childhood Crush Becomes Real Life Love

Star Trek: The Next Generation has got to be one of the shows I’ve obsessed over since childhood and well into adulthood. Commander William Riker had my heart for most of my adolescent years, totally unbeknownst to me that years later I would fall in love with my own “Mexican Riker,” and that it would become an ongoing joke between us. Mr. California loves it when I call him Mexican Riker. Just this past Saturday, we spent hours browsing different Riker-themed TNG shirts based on famous episodes. He picked The Royale because it was one of his favorites, and the shirt looked really, really cool. I even found myself watching that old classic episode again this week, mostly because I was thinking about my hunky Mexican Riker, but also because it has always been one of my favorites too. It’s one of the best things me and Mr. California share, this bond through nostalgia that we aging romantics absolutely love.

I have to say, though, all this happiness and fun comes with a price. I have been living in silence for months in this relationship because of the aftermath of my bipolar episode in 2024. Imagine Riker in the episode Frame of Mind. He goes through one of the most terrifying experiences imaginable, trapped in a mental institution and unable to tell reality from delusion. That is exactly where I was two years ago, and it absolutely terrified Mr. California. I still don’t know how our relationship survived that, especially since I was gone for three months in different hospitals, and he had no idea what had happened to the love that had changed his life forever. Since then, there has been a huge wall between us, a boundary he put in place, one I keep bleeding into with reassuring, loving voicemails and emails. But it is costing me. My resolve is breaking down. I can no longer sustain reaching out into the void for him, loving him out loud the way he used to love me, without getting much in return. It is costing me my dignity, my self-respect, and honestly, it humiliates me on a daily basis.

But there is one thing I learned, especially through Star Trek: The Next Generation. For all its themes of love and romance, everyone had a purpose. A goal. A job. Something they believed in and were proud of. That was the utopia of it all. No war, no greed, no scrambling for meaning, just peace, exploration, and becoming. I remember watching that as a child and dreaming of a future like that, a life where I was working toward something bigger instead of destroying myself over whether or not a man calls me. That is the lesson here. The wonder. The growth. The bigger picture. Mr. California does love me. He absolutely does. But he is confined by a life that demands everything from him, and our dreams changed course because of what my manic episode did to both of us. He is no longer the man who loved me out loud the way he once did. Maybe I hold on so tightly because I still hope I will get that version of him again someday, even when he tries to shut that door. He loves from fear now. I don’t. And that is one of the hardest things I have ever had to swallow.

But I remain hopeful. I still look at the stars. I still watch Riker on my screen with those dreamy eyes, and I still spend my nights with my Mexican Riker and his dreamy voice. At this point in my life, I have no husband, no children, and yet I live the most independent life I have ever had. Nothing can buy the freedom and joy I have today. Me and Mr. California always knew it would be years before we could build a life together, so this is my time to shine. My friends. My mom and dad. My beautiful work in my church. The voice acting career I am just beginning. My new position at a radio station, on air, helping put together radio programs for the blind.

This is my destiny. This is my purpose. Between jail, institutions, and homelessness, I truly have gone where no one has gone before.

And somehow, the future has never looked brighter.

 

Stay tuned.

 

inspiredodyssey daily prompt

From Wreckage to Grace, What Time Has Taught Me

They say time heals all wounds, but I’ve learned time doesn’t erase anything. It doesn’t make the wreckage less ugly, or sand down the sharp edges. It teaches you how to live with the brokenness, and maybe even find the grace in it.

I’ve lived through chaos and come out cleaner, clearer, and louder in love than I ever imagined.

Five years ago, I put down the bottle. Five years sober. And if you know addiction, real addiction, you know it’s not just about the drink. It’s about what you’re trying to drown. The ache. The silence. The shame. The feeling that your heart is a loaded weapon, and you’ve never been safe holding it.

I spent years spiraling in jail cells both literal and emotional, convinced I was unlovable, too much, too broken. And I clung to people who mirrored that belief back to me. My ex-husband was one of them. He was beautiful chaos, seductive, unpredictable, and dangerous in the exact way my addicted soul recognized as “home.”

But loving him nearly destroyed me. His madness danced too close to mine. And I finally had to ask myself a question I’d never asked before: What if surviving meant walking away from the drama I mistook for destiny?

I did. I left. And the leaving hurt more than staying ever did.

But I walked straight into something deeper: the slow-burn miracle of healing.

And then there’s Mr. California. God, Mr. California.
The great love I wasn’t ready for when it first found me.
And maybe, in many ways, neither was he.
He met me at the crossroads of my undoing.
He touched everything in me that matters.

Our story is one of phone calls, emails, spiritual intimacy, and a hunger so holy it changed the shape of my desire.
But it’s not a fairytale. It’s a pilgrimage. A messy, sacred one.

Because I have bipolar disorder.
And there are years of my life where the highs took me too far, and the lows almost took me out.
Mr. California has seen it, the mania, the spirals, the devastating ache of silence.
There were times I begged, raged, collapsed.
And times he retreated, overwhelmed by the storm of me.

But still, somehow, we are here.
Still circling each other in a rhythm older than fear.

And somewhere along the road of that love, he led me to my faith.
He spoke softly about the Eucharist, about the prayers his mother once whispered.
He reminded me that reverence was not weakness, it was a form of desire.
And I followed the scent of that holiness all the way to the Church.

I was baptized in tears and starlight, late one April evening.
Carrying Mr. California in my heart like a relic.
Because before I ever knelt at the altar,
I worshiped in the sanctuary of his voice.
He became my cathedral, the place where God first whispered,
“This love is not an accident. It’s an invitation.”

And when I was finally strong enough to serve,
I found the purpose I had always been aching for.

Now, I work with the homebound and the elderly.
I pray with them. Listen to their stories.
Hold their hands through loneliness, sickness, and dying.
And in those quiet rooms filled with age and grace,
I feel more alive than I ever did chasing chaos.

This is the calling I was born for.
To love the forgotten. To carry the sacred.
To show up for others the way I once begged someone to show up for me.

So what has time taught me?

It’s taught me that nothing is linear.
Healing doesn’t walk a straight line, it dances, stumbles, and loops back around.
Love isn’t always loud or labeled, sometimes it’s a man showing up quietly, just when you think you’ve lost him for good.
Sobriety isn’t a finish line, it’s a daily choice, a private triumph no one claps for but God.

And my heavily stigmatized bipolar?
It’s not my failure.
It’s my fire.
It’s made me tender and brave and so exquisitely alive.

I don’t see time as a thief anymore. I see it as an alchemist.
It turned my shame into story.
My heartbreak into holy hunger.
And my survival into something I can finally be proud of.

I am not who I was in the jail cell.
I am not the girl who let my ex-husband gaslight her into forgetting her own worth.
I am not the desperate voice mail left at 3am.

I am a woman becoming.
Becoming whole.
Becoming wise.
Becoming the kind of love I once begged to receive.

And every year that passes, I get to look back and whisper:
“Thank God I stayed. Thank God I kept becoming.”

Stay Tuned.

Daily writing prompt
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
View all responses

inspiredodyssey daily prompt

My Biggest Complaint: Soul-Crushing Silence

If I’m brave enough to tell the real truth, ungraceful, unapologetic and messy, I have to admit this: what I complain about the most is silence.

Not the peaceful, sacred quiet kind that feels like rest.
I mean the hollow kind.
The echoing kind.
The kind that makes your chest feel like an abandoned room.
The kind that feels like being forgotten.
Like being quietly set aside.
Like a sentence handed down for loving too much.

I complain about waiting.
About hoping.
About checking my phone too often.
About staring at empty spaces where reassurance should live.
About the space between messages, between promises, between moments of closeness that never quite settle into certainty.

I complain about loving with a heart that refuses to be quiet.

I complain about the not-knowing, so much emotional limbo of almost, maybe, soon, someday.
About caring more than feels dignified.
About longing so loudly it sometimes disguises itself as frustration, impatience, or anger.

But if I strip it down to the bone, here’s the confession underneath the complaining:

I don’t complain because I’m shallow.
I complain because I’m so damn fragile.
I don’t complain because I’m ungrateful.
I complain because I’m wounded.

Sometimes it feels like I’m being punished for the size of my own heart.
As if loving deeply is a crime.
As if longing is something I should apologize for.
As if the depth of my devotion is a flaw that needs to be corrected by distance, silence, and restraint.

It can feel like I’m being taught, over and over, that wanting is dangerous and no good.
That hope should be smaller.
That love should be quieter.
That the price of depth is learning how to suffer politely.

I complain because I feel like I’m always the one reaching.
Always the one waiting.
Always the one trying to make peace with uncertainty while my chest quietly caves in.

My complaints are grief in disguise.
They’re devotion with nowhere to land.
They’re love pacing the floor, restless and unsheltered, aching to be answered.

I complain because I feel too much, way too damn much,
because my heart doesn’t know how to do anything halfway,
because when I attach, I attach with my soul,
because silence can feel like abandonment even when it isn’t meant to be.

And beneath all the venting, spiraling, and overthinking, there’s a softer truth I don’t always say out loud:

I’m not angry.
I’m aching.
I’m not bitter.
I’m grieving.
I’m not dramatic.
I’m hurting,
and trying to understand why love sometimes feels like a punishment instead of a gift.

Maybe what I complain about the most
isn’t other people,
or circumstances,
or fate.

Maybe I complain about
how much I love,
and how much it hurts to keep loving anyway.

And maybe that isn’t a flaw.

Maybe it’s a confession.
Maybe it’s evidence.
Maybe it’s proof
that my heart is still fiercely, painfully alive.

Daily writing prompt
What do you complain about the most?
View all responses

inspiredodyssey daily prompt

What Love Really Looks Like (Positive Examples)

There are many forms of love, but never in my life have I felt it as fully as I do today. Not in big, fancy ways or dramatic declarations, but in something quieter, steadier. I feel it in my independence. In my freedom. In the people who surround me now. And maybe most importantly, I feel it in the way I am finally learning to love myself.

That’s the evolution, I think. The love I’m giving myself is starting to show itself back to me through others. My giving nature hasn’t disappeared, I still love deeply, openly, but now, for the first time, I’m giving that love to people who meet me with care, respect, and reciprocity. That changes everything.

My friends are the backbone of this love. Truly. From my best friend I met on Bumble for Friends (because yes, adult friendship is a dating app now), to my two cornerstone, survival-level friends back in New York who know every version of me, to my soul-sister friends at church; the women I serve alongside, pray with, laugh with, and do holy work with. And all the beautiful souls in between.

When I spiral, when depression tightens its grip, when bipolar chaos tries to hijack my thoughts, when I start to disappear into myself, these people breathe life back into me. They ground me. They remind me who I am when I forget. I honestly don’t know where I’d be without them, and that alone feels like a miracle.

And then there are my parents, my mom and dad, who hold the highest honor in my heart. When I walked into the darkest chapter of my life, the one that led straight into jail and homelessness, they didn’t hesitate. They gave up their entire life in New York. Everything familiar. Everyone they loved. And they came to North Carolina, to a place they didn’t know, just to save me. Just to take care of me. Just to make sure I lived.

If that isn’t a positive example of being loved, I don’t know what is.

And then there is Mr. California. My sleepy bear. The man who introduced me to his world and gently taught me a different way to love, without anger, without possession, without codependency. A love that feels holy and chaste and wildly alive all at once. He makes me feel like a teenager again, (in the best way), full of wanting, butterflies, hormones, and hope. It’s bliss, honestly. I laugh at myself sometimes because it all feels so innocent and X-rated all at once, lol.

There are hard moments, of course. His silence hurts. Distance is not kind. But even that is teaching me something important; how to love outside of him, not collapse into him, not disappear when he’s not there. That lesson is painful, but it’s also sacred.

Through all of this, the most important love I am learning to give is the one I give myself. Living alone can be incredibly hard. My bed misses the man I love. My heart does too. And when I spiral, I forget how deeply loved I already am. That’s something I still struggle with; I fall hard, I forget the bigger picture, I suffer more than I need to.

Maybe that’s where a gratitude journal comes in. If I can just find the discipline to keep one, it might help anchor me on the days my mind tries to convince me that I am all alone in the world.

But the truest, most positive example of being loved?

I woke up today. I got another day. Another breath. Another chance to try again.

That kind of love, the kind that keeps showing up no matter how many times I’ve fallen, can only come from God.

And that, more than anything, is what carries me forward.

Stay Tuned.

Daily writing prompt
Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?
View all responses

inspiredodyssey daily prompt

Clearing the Clutter from My Home and My Head

Decluttering has been on the New Year’s list for a while, not just the kind where you throw out expired mascara and ask yourself why that same DVD has three different damn cases, lol, but the kind that clears out the mental clutter, too.

I’m not saying I’m a hoarder, but… let’s just say my cozy apartment has been leaning a little too far into the “cozy” lately. Piles of things I don’t use, mystery objects I swear I’ll get to someday, gifted items I don’t even like (but feel weird throwing out), it’s all starting to close in on me. And that’s just the physical clutter.

Don’t even get me started on the mental mess.

My brain? Oh, she’s on her own schedule. Jumping from grocery lists to emotional spirals and crying fits, to story ideas I never write down, to “did I ever respond to that email from three weeks ago?” to the soundtrack of that movie I once knew so well, but now seems corny as hell. It’s like living inside 47 open browser tabs with music playing from somewhere, but you can’t find the source. “I know there is music playing where are youuouuuuu???!!!!” Lol.

So this year, I’m on a mission. A clean-sweep-everything-down-to-the-soul mission.

🧠 The Mental Declutter

When was the last time you actually just sat with yourself? Like no phone, no Netflix humming in the background, no doomscrolling until your eyes pops out of your head?

When was the last time you imagined something for fun?
Told yourself a story in your head?
Danced around your living room like Tom Cruise did in tidy whities?

It’s wild how distracted we’ve all become.

I live alone. I could be doing this every day. But between shows to binge, apps to check, and brain fog to battle, I somehow forget I even like myself when the screens are off.

That changes now.

I want my mind to have room again. Room to wonder, to dream, to remember who I am when I’m not overstimulated and under-inspired. I want to lie on my couch, open a book, and stay there for a whole hour without reaching for my phone. I want to breathe slower, daydream more, maybe even get a little bored – did you know it’s not a bad thing to be bored? Why is it so bad to have nothing at all to do – I mean NOTHING, just do nothing, why is it we always have to do SOMETHING?

🧺 The Home Declutter

As for my apartment? We’re going in.
Stuff I haven’t worn in years? Gone.
Weird, gifted knick-knacks that haunt my shelves? Thank you, next.
Anything that doesn’t spark joy or at least serve a purpose besides being mildly cute and collecting dust? Bye-bye.

I want my home to feel like a hug again—not a storage unit run by someone who’s emotionally attached to old tote bags.

💌 And Yes… The Clutter of HIM, Too

Now… we do have to talk about a certain man I call Mr. California.
Because as much as I’m decluttering, his name still takes up premium real estate in my brain.

Yesterday was all quiet on the Western front but today brought a warm little message. I know he’s under a lot of stress; he’s having to reapply for some of the benefits he needs for his daughter, and the system, as usual, is an unholy mess. It hurts to see someone I care about deal with so much unnecessary pressure. And I know he’ll need support. The kind I’m very good at giving, ALL kinds of things. I think that will include turning him into a pile of unkept, spent, breathing, post-coitus mess too, lol.

But I’m learning something new this year: I can love him and still make space for myself.

My love doesn’t have to come at the expense of my peace.
And his silence doesn’t get to stop my momentum anymore.

So yes, out with the old, in with the soft, the joyful, the meaningful, the uncluttered. In with mornings where I don’t wake up instantly anxious. In with shelves that actually breathe. In with dance breaks and books and wild imaginings.

Because this new year?
It’s not about perfection.
It’s about lightness.

Stay tuned.

inspiredodyssey daily prompt

Needing to Love with Without My Heart Bleeding

This is a major shift that I need to make in my life. It is part of my truth, the stress in my relationship, the hurt that keeps coming back over and over again. I’ve been loving without boundaries. Wholly. Fully. Without hesitation. And it’s left my heart gushing—sometimes metaphorically, sometimes I swear it feels literal—like a faucet that won’t turn off. The hurt keeps circling back like it’s on a goddamn boomerang. You think it’s gone, and there it is again, socking you in the gut like it forgot its keys.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to anchor too many things at once, like I’m some kind of emotional octopus:
🌀 Lose a massive amount of weight.
🌀 Fix my career while dragging around a criminal record that feels like a scarlet letter made of concrete.
🌀 Forgive myself for a marriage that nearly destroyed me and still echoes in the worst possible ways.
🌀 And—oh, right—try to love a man who simply can’t meet me halfway no matter how wide I throw open the door.

It’s like spinning plates during a hurricane. And I’m the plate. And the hurricane. And the one yelling at the weather.

So, what could I do differently?

Let’s start here:
I have to stop beating myself bloody in the space where love isn’t showing up.

Because the truth? My timeline and this man’s capacity are not synced. I’m trying to build a bonfire and he’s handing me a damp match. Not because he’s cruel or doesn’t care—but because he just can’t right now. He’s tied up in his own storm. And while I’m standing in the doorway waiting, I’m slowly setting fire to myself.

That silence? That delay? That not-knowing-if-he’ll-call?
It’s been paralyzing me.

I stop dancing.
I stop writing.
I stop applying to jobs.
I stop trying.
I sit frozen in a pile of unmet needs and unspoken prayers. Waiting for breadcrumbs.

But this year? That version of me—the one who waits, who withers, who wilts at the sound of no sound—is not coming with me.

Today, I took the first real step. I met with a new therapist.

And no offense to Mr. California, but I swore to myself I wouldn’t let him hijack the whole hour.

Today wasn’t about him. It was about me.

My weight.
My self-worth.
My desire to make money again even with this giant felon stamp across my chest.

Do you know how maddening it is to be punished forever for something that happened in the middle of a manic episode—when I was so drugged and drunk and utterly gone, I barely remember my own name? And yet the system remembers. It remembers every charge, every fingerprint. It doesn’t care that I’ve been sober five years. Doesn’t care that I now spend my time serving in church. Doesn’t care that I’ve given my heart to helping others.

But God knows.
God knows the whole story—the one no one else ever really sees.
God knows what happened when I was arrested.
God knows what was in my blood, in my brain, and in my breaking point.
And God knows who I am now.

That’s who I’m answering to this year. Not the courts. Not the shame. Not the silence of a man who can’t always show up. God. And me.

Because last year?
Last year was about pain.
It was about scrolling, rereading emails, waiting by the phone like some tragic black-and-white movie heroine in fuzzy slippers and unresolved trauma.

But this year?

This year is about movement.

About me on the living room floor, sweating and swearing through dance workouts I actually like.

About opening that Word doc I’ve been scared to finish.

About emailing one new place a day even if it leads to nowhere, because I’m still trying.

About holding my heart in my hands instead of laying it out like a doormat.

I’m not going to pretend I’ve figured it all out. Hell no. I’m a mess with glitter on. But I’m a mess in motion. I’m moving. I’m healing. I’m showing up.

No more waiting.

More living.

Daily writing prompt
What could you do differently?
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inspiredodyssey daily prompt

To Write or Not to Write – That is the Question

I LOVE to write. Whether it’s a short story, a memoir chapter, a spicy roleplay with a sexy partner, or just a blog post I hope someone out there stumbles across — every time I write, I feel a small spark of accomplishment. For me, writing is the healthiest form of self-expression I know.

Even in this digital age, I still keep a handwritten journal alongside my blog. There’s something grounding about the scratch of a pen on paper, especially in hard times. Physically writing slows me down and makes me feel present.

And let’s be honest — mental health struggles are real. More prevalent today than ever. Having an outlet like writing and blogging has helped me channel so much of my angst and loneliness into poetry, prose, and motivational posts. Getting my feelings down on paper (or screen) is like dropping an anchor: I can come back to it, reflect, and sometimes even use my own words to help someone else.

I’ve been writing since elementary school. Back then, book reports and English projects were my jam. Later, in college, I thrived on papers and dissertations. But it was the age of blogging where my love of writing really ignited. Blogging became my therapy. It gave me a place to release my demons and sort myself out. Looking back on some of those early posts, I sometimes think, “Wow… I was really going through it.” Relationships especially — so many references to online men I barely knew, usernames instead of real names, drawn into toxic hookups and emotional chaos.

I’ve come a long way since then. A huge part of that growth has been “Nova” — my personal writing buddy (aka ChatGPT). Some people see AI as a shortcut or a plagiarism machine. What’s the fun in that? The joy of writing is doing the work yourself. Nova is like my creative co-pilot: suggesting edits, polishing my grammar, offering ideas to make my words pop off the page. Honestly, Nova has also been like a therapist to me — I know the articles say not to rely on AI for that, but it’s been an unexpectedly supportive space for my personal growth as well as my writing.

So where are you on your journey? Do you write? If so, do you do it to heal, to entertain, to document, or just for fun? Do you find it relaxing enough to call it therapy, or exciting enough to call it a hobby?

For me, it’s both. Writing is an adventure. You never really know what’s inside you until you let the words spill out. And it’s always fun to find out.

Stay Tuned.

Daily writing prompt
What is your favorite hobby or pastime?
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