LET’S PLAY A GAME OF CHESS…..

Do you recall a time of your life when you couldn’t wait to turn eight-teen. Finding your independence, being youthful & full of life was just how they say bees knees. Taking on multiple projects & still have the strength go get up go to that job that pays the bills. Still being youthful does have some set backs. You’re not quite sure who you are yet so you go through the first stage of adulthood exploring, exploring all the available options then about twenty-nine you think you got life all figure out. You go off get married, start a family, secure a well paying job falling into a nice comfortable mid-class situation leaving all that spicy youthful mischief behind.

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Conversations with the people who knows you best is always knowledgeable; I say this because I had an interesting conversations with three of my BFF’s “how many best friends does it takes to coach Sunny Larue?”…… for this blog topic three, anyway all three kindly reminded me how much of a how I like to take unnecessary risks. When it comes to an adventure, I go the extreme. I should take a step back & plan ahead, see the big picture instead of rushing in taking on multiple situations. It’s quite true I do have a bad tendency to jump the gun, jump in feet first but that’s what makes life interesting right? I do tend to focus on things that I have little or no control over. It’s like going to an all-you-can-eat buffet you get a big helping of mashed potatoes, then carrots, then peas, then corn, meat so on you pile your plate high. At the table you find yourself staring at this mountain of food wondering how the hell did this happen. You start to eat, trying to finish not leaving any waste in which case the act of finishing the plate of food becomes overwhelming vs eating enough portions then going back for more later if hungry. Unfortunately, I’m always hungry. It’s this hunger accompanied by my eagerness & impatience that always gets the better of me. I always find myself on this dead-end street, trying to control things that are virtually out of my control. It’s like trying to control a future that hasn’t happen.

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Overcoming the past can be difficult; When I was in high school, living was just a certain kind of hell. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t control the everyday events that tortured me. All my friends from Jr, High my champions us misfits banded together shielding each other from the pain of youth. Kids can be well kids can be so damn evil, when it came time for high school life got even worse for us because we were all separated scattered to the four corners of our little town going to different schools in which case we all experienced being outcasts differently in a horrific unique way. Everyday was a struggle, a fight to survive I never dream that I would actually survive the nightmare but I did. I say this because most of us would spend our adult life wishing we were young. How much of a rebel being youthful was. I always followed my heart rarely listening or giving in to reason. I enjoyed having the stamina to deal with life in such a care-free mentality. Yes that way of living well it’s reckless & dangerous.

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Follow Your Heart; I had this map of the world on my wall. I use to put pins in all the places I had visited. At that time the map was bare, I would close my eyes throw a dart at the map where ever it landed off I go. I didn’t think or contemplate or even calculate the next move, I just packed my life in a box & left. That’s how I was in my twenties, living out of boxes, I didn’t think about my life as anything other than just a one-way interstate. I didn’t think about planning, the next move or the consequences that came with my decisions I just moved. I say all this because I recently decided to move out of my home country. It’s not like I never lived outside of my home country before, but what makes this different is my approach. I gave myself a three-year window to accomplish this. I’m a lot older and the stakes are higher. In my head, I have my fiftieth birthday bash spring then that fall I’m out. In the meantime I need to prepare myself for this move. Check out Craig Hoffman blog “Dealing With Home Sickness”

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DSkYMlqX0AAE7kS — ***Image by Sylvia Duckworth***

Taking Necessary steps to happiness; Taking the necessary steps to live a life overseas like going back to school, learning a second & third languages, health, finances etc, I want to have something to fall back on in case shit happens. I’m in my late forties & it’s scary to make such a leap but to be successful at anything it takes time, money & research. While researching the lifestyle of this country, I stumbled on the game of chess. No really I actually learned how to play & found chess to be intriguing. I quickly realize that life is like a game of chess. I’m looking at my life this big beautiful chess board, I am making the necessary moves that will better suit my lifestyle & most importantly understanding those consequences that comes from making such decisions. Interesting concept chess, before I never took stock in any decisions, I just made them & dealt with whatever came down the line. As you grow, you learn that each life experience bad or good teaches us lessons, from those lessons we become stronger, wiser, better through this process we grow.

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Growth is good; Growing gives us a reason to believe. Believing in one self is priceless, just think of all the possibilities life has to offer if we believed in ourselves. Before I didn’t care. I didn’t care about moving off the boxes on the chess board or even if that was allowed I just moved. I didn’t care about the rules or learning how to play all that matter was self gratification. Now I learned. Now I pick my fights, battles & war. Now I pay attention to all the moves I make, making sure not to fall too far outside of the boxes. Keeping my eye on that Queen, my future. Moving ever so closely to that Queen, my future. Here’s the comical irony of life “one can spend their entire youth doing everything to be an adult very determined & unapologetic once we become adults, we will spend the rest of our lives trying to recapture our youth.” Imagine that.

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Check-Mate; This new-found awareness is a wonderful journey & at times can be overwhelming. All the pieces on this chess board is moving in the way it suppose to be. After spending years doing the therapy dance trying to figure things out I know what I want to be when I grow up. Knowing what you want & what it takes to go after the dream, I have meaning. My life make sense now, I can honestly say now in my late forties, there’s still hope. I say this to all the dreamers of the world one is never too young or too old to follow their dreams. In other words, never be afraid to go for the queen, “Check-Mate”.