Give Yourself a Gift Today

By giving someone else a gift.

On the heels of my last post asking for change I offer this up…

I was recently in Safeway (Grocery Store) checking out early on a Sunday morning. There was a Safeway employee behind me in line. She looked like she worked in the bakery or deli given her hat and apron. I smiled and said hello. She put a diet coke up on the belt behind my big pile of groceries. I grabbed her coke, she looked at me like I was nuts, and asked the cashier to scan it and add it to my bill. I turned to the worker, handed her the diet coke, and said, “I thought I’d save you a few minutes and a buck or two…have a wonderful rest of your day”. That crazy look turned into one of gratitude…almost stunned. I left the store with an extra skip in my step. Continue reading “Give Yourself a Gift Today”

Many requests…Many fears…17 years. It’s time.

I pierced my tongue. I was 26 years old, lost, devastated, feeling empty and hopeless. I had lost my best friend and father to cancer and in the same year connected with my biological mother for the fist time who informed me that I was conceived by a gang rape…three black men had raped her…a white, Irish woman. I left my full time job as a leader of a non profit in Minneapolis and was now a bartender back in Baltimore. I thought that when my Dad told me to “Stay True” to myself that it meant “be free”, don’t care what others think of you….and piercing my tongue was evidence that I understood what he was telling me. I clearly had not understood the depth of what my Dad talked to me about. I did and always do care what others think of me and so do you. The first few years of this now 17 year journey were rough…real rough.

Continue reading “Many requests…Many fears…17 years. It’s time.”