Walking Into the Unknown

This picture was taken of me almost year and a half ago just outside of Berlin. I shared it once with the incredible women in my Erotic Goddess Community last November when I was mired deeply in self-recrimination. I had just finished chemo about two to three weeks prior. So this scene was the first of many vulnerable steps I was about to take, knowing very little what I was stepping into.

And so I moved into those freezing waters. They were invigorating and enlivening and helped me feel my body fully. This also marked the beginning of a healing odyssey that took me into a process of finding what actually "lived me", now as opposed to then.

I share this picture for many reasons. I have noticed that every time I start spiraling into an old pattern of negative self-talk and fear, somehow this picture shows up by happenstance, on whatever device I am using at the time, for no apparent reason. Is that the Universe speaking or a glitch in my Apple products?!?

As this New Year starts, I have a renewed sense of purpose and a deeper sense of WTF-ness. I am no longer willing to hide myself and how vulnerable I feel every single day. The way I pretend that my aging body and fading memory is a joke that is rooted in a reality I have been unwilling to face. I find myself at times walking past mirrors wondering how the hell my mother showed up in the room without my noticing. I see how afraid I am of being irrelevant and "past my prime" as I step into closer relationship with all the millennials I've met and danced with in these last few years.

Everything that I've said here I have heard over and over again from women who have reached a certain time in life and feel that, somehow, they have become invisible. We live in a youth-oriented society. I wonder if it's that we start buying into society's belief that we don't matter or whether we have lost our edge, as our bodies start to show signs of aging.

So, with cellulite flying, I commit to keep on walking, naked into the unknown, determined, vulnerable, and exhilarated! I invite you to walk naked beside me and the other humans in your life as well. I find that the more I "let show and let go" of whatever holds me back, including my feelings of shame, inadequacy, and terror, the more I can walk through life not giving one more fuck about anything except taking that one more step.

Allons-y!