I have been on a journey-really we all have from the time we were born. My journey ramped up after my divorce seven years ago and in the past year I have actively decided to reinvent myself with the help of some but mostly with great internal reflection and the very wise words someone told me. “Rebecca you need to make some life style changes.”

So I took a three week sabbatical last year- I hired a woman to help me downsize, pack and donate my unwanted items-fifty five boxes to Goodwill and thirty four boxes of books to the Oxford library book sale. The woman was amazing!! Inspiring and a bit of a counselor. I found I had a lot of anger hidden among all of my things. When I donated them and opened up my space I allowed new energy in. I also hired someone to clean and detail my car for the first time ever. I’m sure my mechanic was elated. He was always gracious about all the pet hair floating about my car. I also decided to exercise more, eat better, take more photos, read more and write again. Even though I have my own library in my apartment, after I got divorced I found I stopped reading for pleasure and writing. I stopped writing too after I lost all my journals-from the time I was ten until I was thirty nine-in an apartment fire started by a drug addicted tenant I lived next door to.

Over the past year I started posting more on Facebook, then I started journaling again. I decided over the past eight months I was not going to live in fear anymore. I had lived through the depths of depression and anxiety and crawled back out to status quo. I don’t want to live at status quo. I want to pursue my dreams, be at peace, enjoy life and reinvent myself like the butterfly.

The bottom picture shows a tree and the tell tale signs that a yellow bellied sap sucker has been there. Banging his beak against the tree bark to get the sap. I love the markings, the precision and the fact that they can’t give up or they don’t eat. People often think when they see these holes the trees are damaged but I have pictures of them flowering beautifully.

Reinvent yourself, bang your head and don’t back down. Life is great!