I couldn’t wait to meet Kokoa and little Miss Harlyn at the farmers market in Temecula this weekend..The girls and I have our standing date to meet up and just pick up flowers and talk about whatever the girls what to talk about whatever their little hearts desire.

I love having fresh flowers around the house when I’m creating.

They’re just so beautiful to look at.

I also love looking at the girls picking fresh veggies and bonding together.

I just love that they’re growing up and they’re making these memories.

They’re building a genuine friendship and that is truly rare these days. I want them to cherish this.

When I was my oldest daughters age, I remember longing for boy to give me flowers.

That’s why it’s so beautiful that our daughters are getting dressed up on Saturday to go the farmers and pick out the most beautiful bouquet of flowers and take themselves to a fine French breakfast because they desire it.

THEY DESERVE IT.. that’s the point we want to instill in them, they are beautiful, intelligent, and worthy of beautiful things ALWAYS.. that’s why I love these days.

I was talking to Kokoa and telling her I really appreciate her friendship and Harlyn’s friendship with my girls because growing up I was so focused on the wrong things.

I mean I was focused on friendship but I think I was focused on the surface level because I didn’t know how to move beyond that even within myself. I’m just know making that journey with a guided map and therapist.

I came into middle school with a deceased mother I was grieving and unaware, grasping for love anyway I could find it, long for flowers and deep love from ill equipped 11 year old boys my heart was bleeding but my adolescent mind just knew I wanted flowers and a boyfriend to placate the pain.

I was focused on trying to get the boys to “give me flowers” and let me tell I know how to get boys to give me flowers but in the process of doing that I never really learned how to establish deeper relationships with the friends that truly matter in my life.

It’s all very complicated trying to juggle it all and I’m trying to repair those wounds with the people that truly matter now.

Now, I am by no means saying I was a bad friend but I could have been a better friend.

I could have been better to myself.. my whole life and the simplest way I’ve started NOW is buying myself fresh flowers and meeting up with Kokoa and Harlyn.

I come home recharged.. rejuvenated and just feeling better.

I also tell her I’m so happy our little girls will know that it’s ok to by yourself fresh flowers.. it doesn’t mean you’re “desperate” or anything..

I like to look at nice things when I write blog post.

Yeah I’m gangsta or whatever… but I like sunflowers.. they are beautiful and you can eat them..

Anyways…

I have touched on the fact that “Soooo therapy is deep and I just realized I’m 35 and don’t believe in myself”

If I’m 35 and I’ve never believed in myself, you better believe I’m just now figuring out I’m 35 and I didn’t love myself…

BUT I do NOW.. so much, which is why I’m taking care of myself so much better and I’m able to stand up myself and I’m not putting with things that I used to be and that’s how I learned I like fresh flowers.

I used to say “it’s a waste of money”

$3.50 a bunch at the farmers market I got some for my nana to make her smile too🤣

See, I realized why I wanted the flowers from boys and later in life from men..

I wanted to feel desired, wanted, loved and special..

I am already all of those things and I never realized that until recently.

It took me a very long time to love and appreciate myself.

It took years of therapy, so accepted “flowers” anywhere I could get them and now I see the flowers within myself and at my age I realize…

Dammit, I can buy my own flowers.. and I like flowers.

I also used to be one of those girls that “hated” flowers because they die.

Well Saturday I got the courage to asks the owner how to keep them alive longer because I just like looking at them when I write.. he said

“Change the water every two days, cut the bottom a very little bit and add a teaspoon of sugar they will last longer”

I don’t mind working to keep these beauties alive a little longer…

I been lying to myself all theses years.. I don’t hate flowers.. and I didn’t need anyone to buy me flowers.

I just didn’t know where to find them or how to take care of them.

Sometimes you just lack knowledge of self… and self love all together.

I’ve been reaching out and apologizing for being such a horrible friend in the past.

I lied, I wasn’t there, I was selfish, I asked for forgiveness of my true and friends and I’m rebuilding those friendships..

I could hide behind the fact I had a mental illness, I’m bipolar, plus like 3 other MAJOR mental illnesses but I was just a shitty person that didn’t love myself and learning now.

I’m like those flowers.. like the owner said.

Cut of the bad, put it new water add a little sugar and grow.

I’m trying.

I only want people around me that understand.

Working on your mental health is a tremendously hard thing to do.

I’m not going to continuously explain my past, what’s the point.. you cut of the dead and regrow.

Just like flowers.

Being a girl mom is tough, you have a lot of time to think about what you’ve done and how you don’t what your girls to do that..

My biggest mistake was not loving myself.. and I’m very open about that with my oldest daughter and I tell her almost hourly, how intelligent she is, how much better is than me at that age because I was chasing little musty boys and she’s into molecular biology, but I’ve learned in loving flowers..

They regrow all the time and I’m so hard on myself, I need to be more like the flowers I love so much and rest in my season and bloom when it’s time

Nothing in nature blooms all the time.. well evergreens but that’s not the point 🤣🤷🏾‍♀️

Anyway

I’ve come to realize.. mental health journeys and self love journey’s are all very tough.

It seems like unraveling a sweater almost you pull one piece something else is wrong but you have to pull it out to fix it and once you do you feel so much better.

Every time we pick out our flowers, we get excited to buy the next batch and in the back of my mind I know when my daughters are grown they won’t be ashamed to buy flowers for themselves.

They won’t think it’s an act of a desperate woman some man couldn’t buy her flowers.

No… she just wanted to by herself something beautiful to look at and that’s ok.