January 1, 2022.

 Move along if extreme positivity, goal-setting, mystic bullshit is gonna get you upset.

I wrote this for the people who have lost it all. Who believe that no one will ever believe in them. Who are crawling and scraping and just trying to get it together.

This is for you.

Today is January 1, 2022, and I'm ready.

I'm ready.

Yesterday, I shared with a friend Colleen Crongeyer graphic designer hire her that this is the first time in my life when I felt like I was going into the new year as the badass bitch I always knew I could be.

Get friends who respond the way she did, with an affirmative "Yaaasss, Queen, get it!" and then the ways she felt empowered as well.

I'm trying a whole bunch of stuff. Some of it will crash and burn. Some of it will take off. All of it will be as award-winning, far-reaching outta-sight, positive quality as I can muster, doing the best I can with what I've got.

My fencing coach is geared up and is sending me notes to work on and sincere encouragement. My body is loving all of the attention and love and rest and stretching and water and veggies. So is my mind.

Friends like Mary D. and Gabe and little Kaulder are sending me gardening tips. This year I am actually set up to begin the garden of my dreams, on my property. I have a greenhouse now. What? I mean, can you even imagine.

Money:

I entered this year with a positive net worth, and it has not been one year since the divorce (seven months). Do you understand how rare that is, in the United States, for an African American woman to divorce and end up with more without alimony? And also during a pandemic? Bet.

Today and henceforth, decisions about spending are dependent upon answering questions like, "How will this enhance the appraisal on my home?" instead of "Do I get bread to go with this peanut butter in the jar and the jam from the fridge, or do I use those $3 for the bus tomorrow? Ah man, there's no jam..."

Yes, it was like that for a bit.

I'm actually in a position to put into practice every single thing I ever wanted to do in my company--the outreach, the scholarships, the performing for folks in society who are ignored and set aside.  And I'm realizing that the things that I had been doing all this time that I thought no one was paying attention to (and some were discouraging) were simply ahead of my time, not the trash I thought everybody thought it was. 

Yes, it was like that for a long, long time.

When I saw the first Wonder Woman movie, I saw it back in the day when we could go to the movie theater with sticky floors and gum on the arm rests breathing everybody's air and not even think twice about it.(Strangers sat right.next.to.you.)(Thisclose).  And I sobbed those first twenty minutes watching these women of all shapes and sizes and hues Doing The Things. If you know you know, ya know; it was that feeling of, "I didn't know I needed this but wow yay! and also it's about f*cking time why did it take so long but wow! this is amazing. Look at this! LOOK. AT. IT. "

That. 

That's how I feel.

I wrote this for the people who have lost it all. Who believe that no one will ever believe in them. Who are crawling and scraping and just trying to get it together.

Your time isn't coming. It's here, right now, in the muck.

Spiritual stuff coming up!

The lotus flower is special because it blooms and seeds at the same time--symbolic!--and requires muck and mud to grow.

If you're in the muck and mud of life, as it were, you're the lotus flower beginning to bloom. You don't need abuse so GTF out with a plan in place if that's the case, but if it's that struggle of getting stuff off the ground is the one that's got you down, keep going. Keep going. Get the solid advice from good mentors. Work smart. Rest. Drink your water. Hold to the dream as best as you can. We gotchu.

My name is Tina Louise VanOchten Dezerne. Welcome to The Piano Instructor.