Welcome to Freewheeling Friday!!
Hey there, friends, I’ve been in a peculiar space since we last spoke on Mindful Monday. I’m currently packing up the apartment and getting ready to move back to the Bahamas next week, and I’m on edge.
The idea of leaving Miami isn’t what’s throwing me into an emotional rollercoaster that’s on a constant barrel down a death drop—it’s where leaving is taking me.
I’ve always had mixed emotions about living in my home country, and I haven’t lived there for longer than two months in 5 years; to say it’s throwing me for a loop is an understatement. I keep thinking about the genesis of my pain and struggles with mental illness stemming from that place and how healing can’t happen in the place where you were hurt.
I don’t want to be a drag because it’s Friday after all, and the weekend is here, but by this time next week, I will be back there, and it’s giving me pause. Earlier in the week, a friend of mine helped me work through some of what I was feeling.
Usually, knowing that my stay is temporary helps me deal with it better. The problem is there is so much uncertainty surrounding my future. I have a plan, but I am not as confident as I usually am. I know I need to do more work to figure out what’s eating.
At least what’s eating me beyond worrying, I might derail my healing process. That family will get in the way of how I’ve faced a lot of my trauma, too many people will demand my attention, and I’ll get back into risky behavior to cope. Or I’m just catastrophizing because other areas of my life add to the dumpster fire.
What has happened is that my productivity and creativity took a significant hit since the last installment of this newsletter. I haven’t written that much, but what has been at the forefront of my mind are relationships.
Namely, romantic relationships I’ve had past, present, and what I want for the future; I wrote about going home and not coming out to my family as bisexual. It’s none of their business, to be honest. I also wrote a follow up to my brush with a narcissist story. I couldn’t stay away from him, you guys, and I wondered if I could have a healthy relationship with him—the jury is still out, but it’s been interesting so far.
I also wrote about a past work relationship that got out of hand—where the guy thought he was entitled to my love. Finally, I admitted to some of the limiting beliefs I have about love.
Then the devil (an ex-lover) dropped into my inbox. Almost as if my fears of falling into bad habits back home, like feeding my sex addiction, decided to tempt me. I resisted the need to engage and wrote about how being single doesn’t mean I’m available.
Writing in December so far has felt like trying to swim against the tide in an ocean of oil with intense rip currents—did I mention I can’t swim?
Hopefully, things will look up as the Christmas season kicks off. But I doubt that this will be a merry one. I hope to spend my birthday, 27 December, indulging in some much-needed reflection and self-care.
Friend Links to Medium Stories Mentioned
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Can Narcissists Have Healthy Relationships?
The Limiting Beliefs I Have About Love
Why I’m Not Coming Out As Bisexual to My Family
You Are Not Entitled to My Love
Sometimes Single Means Unavailable
Up Next & News
News for Candidly Cole on Substack
So I’ve been talking about starting a Podcast for a long time, and I’m finally getting everything ready for that to roll out in January 2020. I’m not savvy with editing sound clips, so I plan to record them professionally.
The good thing about going home is I have a few friends that have small recording studios and make music so I can have a quality podcast up and out by mid to late January. More news will follow. What I can tell you is I will have selected episodes on this Substack when I roll out paid content.
I’ve also secured my domain for my upcoming blog I’m going to debut between January and February of 2020. Having a Medium publication has been tremendous, and Medium has been very instrumental in helping me exercise my writer's voice and experiment with styles.
With that being said, in 2020, they will be taking 30% of my earnings as a Royalty Tax for the United States, and I’m not happy about it. So I need to supplement the incomes I will be losing. I also want to own and leverage my content with Affiliate Marketing and selling my products. So a website is in order. More news on that as it takes shape.
2020 Also means I will be making a paid version of this newsletter with more quality content that will be helpful. I am currently working towards a Life Coaching Certification so that I will be making a lot of content in the Self-help and Wellness arena for paid subscribers. In the beginning, it will be about $5 a month with room for increase.
Since it’s the Christmas Season, I will be giving away a Year Subscription to a follower when I hit 500 free subscribers. So do share this. I will draw emails to make it fair.
Up Next Week
We’ll see each other on Why Wednesday. Can’t wait to see what’s going to be eating me by then, lol. It’s been changing daily for sure. This Wednesday, I ended up yelling at a guy on the phone for being a proper douche while I was trying to explain directions to my building—why men great ‘til they gotta be?—a question for eternity.
Thanks for stopping by! See you next week!
Enjoy your weekend! Don’t forget to click that heart button, pretty please.
Candidly,
Nicole