32,000 Feet…

Posted on by Sarah Centrella Posted in Motivation & Inspiration, My Stories — No Comments ↓

I’m not the world’s most relaxed flier. That might in fact be a bit of an understatement come to think of it. But today I’m happy. The kind of happy when you want to pinch yourself to be sure your actually awake and not just extremely sleep deprived, hence hallucinating.

On my lap, perched comfortably is my laptop, keys banging away, as I’m answering email, Facebooking, blogging, updating Salesforce. My ears are numb and my heals tap unknowingly to a little lyrical Prozac (aka hip-hop). In my hand a tasty Bloody Mary (yes it’s technically 7am, don’t judge me!! Besides I’ve already had two quad lattes!). I glance up from work to check out the view…37,000 feet up. Calmly floating over snow capped mountains, small rural snow covered towns, mid-sized cities…all in route to my favorite US destination New York City, baby!

I love my life.

Did I mention this is a rather new sensation for me? Happiness. Contentment. Accomplishment. Non-self loathing. It’s all brand new to me. I’m not used to being happy, I mean really happy. It seems like the majority of my life has been spent pretending to be happy, and aside from the precious moments I spend with my children (which is the purest form of joy and happiness), true happiness has not been my BFF. Hard-chip on the other hand, I can totally dig.

But I’m learning to let go of the drama that keeps such joy at bay, and embrace the moments in life when you need to pinch yourself. I have dreamed of this very point in my life, ALL MY LIFE. I have always visualized what it would be like to be satisfied and driven at work, be able to “handle my business” take care of my children, in a way they deserve.

I’m not there, not by a long shot. But I WILL BE. I have worked so hard, to get to this point and I never want to forget how long and hard the journey has been. I want to always feel like a kid in a candy store, I always want to lead with gratitude, and not take any aspect of my life for granted. I want to be an example for my children to know that anything is possible, and with hard work, dedication and most of all belief, anything can be achieved.

When my life first evaporated before my eyes a year and a half ago, I decided I would make the best of this chance at rebirth. I spent an afternoon and collected a colleague of photos to represent various life goals. Trips I’d like to take, the car I’d like to someday drive, the bag I’d like to treat myself with when I land the big promotion. All these images I carefully clipped and put on my wall at work. They were my inspiration of the life I envisioned one day having, to remind me to stay focused and driven.

There is a picture of Disneyland and next to it a photo of Kanen and I, someday I want to go just him and I, and play all day. There’s a photo of a real home, one like the one I hope to be able to move my family into. In the center is a photo of Time Square in NYC, and under it I wrote “NYC Baby!!!” next to that is one of Hollywood. (Reminder, when I first cut out these photos I was on state assistance with no income and no job, these photos felt like the ultimate in ridiculousness and absurdity).

But when I got my first job they went up on the wall in my little cube. When I moved offices and got the new job they went back up. This week I put them up yet again in my new office, as I stepped back to check my view, I almost fell over, realizing that the two photos in the center had just become a reality. I had just come back from a business trip to LA and was preparing to head to NYC. It literally blew me away. I had never connected the dots before that moment, even though I look at those photos every-single day.

My oldest girlfriend and I have dreamed of a trip to NYC for the past 16 years, and every few years try to plan it but I’ve never been able to afford it. I suddenly realized that without thinking about it, she had booked a ticket to meet me in New York for the weekend, to keep me company on this rather long business trip. We were about to live a 16 year dream, and I won’t of spent a cent, to make it come true.

I sit back. Take a long breath in my seat. Stare out the window, breath again. Thank god for the blessings in my life. For giving me a second chance at life. For rewarding a lifetime of work and struggle, for watching over my little family and for this moment in time. I am eternally grateful.

Dream big people! You NEVER know when your dreams will come true. Don’t worry about how they will come true, just dream them! And one day you will be busy making plans and you will stop and notice that it all feels a little familiar…because you have envisioned and prepared for that moment for so long, and your time has finally come.

Time Square NYC

 

 

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Dating Sucks.

Posted on by Sarah Centrella Posted in Dating, Divorce, Relationships — No Comments ↓

dating sucksI’m not even gonna bother lying here, it plain sucks ass. I’m so freaking glad I never had to do it before now. I managed to get to the ripe old age of 33 having never dated, having married my first love.

I never had to pound a drink just so I could find a good reason to bail on a bad first date.
Never had to wonder if I should wait an hour or five minutes before responding to a text.
Never had to leave without saying goodbye.
Never wondered who they were texting when they were right there with me.
Never had to assume the worst. Then be right.
Never had to laugh when it really wasn’t funny.

Never had to tell a stranger my life story. Over and over again.
Never had to pretend to be interested.
Never had to put myself out there, time and again, always for the same result.

I don’t know how to date. Let’s just be honest! This is not something 34 year old women should be learning how to do for the first time. This is the kinda crap you learn by age 18 or maybe your early 20’s. Ya know, get your heart broken a few times, start being jaded.

I think I finally see the point to being jaded, before I thought “no I’m bigger then that”. I was bound and determined to give everyone a fair start, “not bring the baggage”. But I see clearly now that being jaded is what protects us, it’s our defense mechanism, and it’s brilliant! Really and truly it’s getting harder and harder not to be, so I think in the interest of saving time and additional heartache, I’m gonna embrace it with open arms.

broken hearts, burning letters

Its 2010, I resolve to:
NOT ware my hart on my sleeve.
NOT show my hand.
NOT become attached.
NOT date.

It’s been a year and I’m completely exhausted! How do people do this the majority of their life? Who has the energy? I vote for my kids/me/myself/my career and I.’

 

Written by: Sarah Centrella

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New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on by Sarah Centrella Posted in Health & Fitness, Motivation & Inspiration — No Comments ↓
new years resolutions
Cheers!

Ahhhh it’s that time of year again. The time when I sit down, with a glass of wine in one hand, a pen and paper in the other, and I begin the painful, slow dissection of my life. This usually ends with a line item that goes something like this: “limit glass of wine in the evening. Write more. Use computer rather than paper, save a tree”.

As you can see this has the potential to go horribly wrong.

I have one thing going for me this year that I have never had in the history of Sarah’s New Year’s Resolution list making, (which BTW was started the year I learned how to write, age 9 or 10 something like that, don’t ask!). My #1 standing, raining king of all
resolutions, has always been: LOSE WEIGHT. Some years it said “lose 20lbs by June 1st”. Post-kids it read something more like, “lose 60lbs, and please god, (at anytime in the next 12 months, by any means necessary) please melt these lbs off my ass”!! This year I could still put LOSE 10 MORE LBS BY JUNE 1ST, but let’s get real here for a second and say, it aint gonna happen! And what’s more, I’m TOTALLY OK with that! I actually don’t even give a crap anymore! I’m good just the way I am, and I do believe that’s the first time in my life I can say it and actually believe it. So check! Delighted to have that pesky little bastard off my list!

Mind you the other standards will still be present. DO YOGA WEEKLY. RUN DAILY. EAT HEALTHY. DRINK MORE WATER. The generic, all-bases-covered WORK OUT. So I’m not boycotting the whole, live well thing. Just lying off the guilt and self-loathing for a year.

Resolutions…

The fundamental problem I have with New Year’s Resolutions is this.

A). They are essentially, total verification that everything your currently doing in your life is wrong. That if you really got off your ass and applied yourself in any one of these said areas on a daily basis, there would be no need for such a list.

B). The objective: tear your life apart limb, by limb and examine all the areas where you need vast improvement.

Example: BE A BETTER MOM. So the flip side to this is what exactly? That I’m totally inadequate as a mother to date? I mean really. How depressing is this!

OK. OK. So the reason we put ourselves through this hell, is that everyone should do a self inventory at least once a year. Take that opportunity to decide if you are indeed, on the right track. Chart your goals for the upcoming year so at the end of 12 months you can hopefully cross off a few, like I did this year. Then add the new ones that give you reason to improve the whole year through.

And to that end, I continue every year to bust out my journal and jot down my list of necessary self-improvements.

It’s hard not to let it depress you though, let’s be honest.

For example this year I put. START COOKING AGAIN. This is something that is very important to me and something I love to do. Do to the nature of the past year being a “survival” year and all, it’s kinda taken a back burner (I love a good pun….sorry). So I sat down and realized how much I missed cooking every night for my family and decided it needed prominent list placement. But then two things follow that. One, I’m sad because I don’t cook like I used to, because 2 two year olds and a 6 year old are less motivating to make a good gumbo for then another grown-up. Considering I would need to pry their mouths open to eat it (plus it needs to be spicy to be good, so let’s face it, sort of pointless). Two, I know if I really tried to make this happen in my new life it’s just not feasible on a daily basis, which swings right back around to point one, and the limb pulling begins.

new years resolutions
Happy New Year!

But this list also brings possibilities. The hope that just because I do something today, doesn’t mean I need to do it forever. Just because I’ve formed habits, doesn’t mean they don’t need to be examined to see if those are indeed habits worth keeping, or if it’s time to make new ones.

This is why I do it. Not to pull myself apart and cause me to finish the Pinot bottle, when I set out to just have a glass. But to realize that, I am in control of my life. That I can, and should take inventory of it to see where the weak spots are. Examine what needs to be adjusted in order for me to reach the next step successfully in my journey.

To have bench marks.
To have goals.
To push myself.
To never be satisfied with survival.
To always want more for myself.

So cheers! Here’s to 2010 and the endless array of possibilities that lie ahead. To the course that we chart-out on a little list, may it push us to do bigger and better things. May we be patient and loving with ourselves when we see our shortcomings and when we fail. May we always pick ourselves back up again and never stop reaching for what is, in fact possible.

 

Written by Sarah Centrella

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Merry Christmas

Posted on by Sarah Centrella Posted in My Stories — No Comments ↓
…

Dear Friends and Family,

Well this year has been an amazing ride! Lots of ups and downs, great changes and growth. I cant believe how quickly it’s come to a close! So quickly in fact that I have all my cards, written out and was “going to get around” to addressing and mailing them, when I realized today that I had never “gotten around to it”! Oops! I cant believe I didn’t get it done! This is the first year since I was 15 that I didn’t send out Christmas Cards…Sorry guys 🙁

This year Mira and Izzy turned 2 and Kanen is one month away from his 7th birthday! I can not believe how quickly time gets away from me. They are the love of my life and have kept me laughing through all the difficult things I have faced this past year. I could not be more blessed and more grateful for the amount of unconditional love and cheer they bring to me every single day.

The year is ending on a high personal note, I was recently promoted to National Sales Director for a brand-new division in my company. Its a very exciting personal step for me and one of those things I had written down as a goal last year when I returned to work, it’s amazing how things turn out. It will bring exciting changes and some travel which will make my already crazy life just a little more to juggle. However, I’m very blessed, and it’s a great way to end a year that started off on a pretty low note.

Keep Dreamin…

I hope 2009 was a wonderful year for all of you, and is ending on a high, happy note. My little family and I, wish you all love happiness and health.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank each and everyone for the impact you have had on my life. For being there for me through this extreme transition in my life, and supporting and loving me through each phase. I love you all!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

oxxo

A Little Secret….

Posted on by Sarah Centrella Posted in My Stories — No Comments ↓

If you dream it, it will be. If your not afraid to go after what you want, you just might get it. If you work hard and don’t listen to the voices in your head and all around you that tell you “no” then you will be exactly where you always envisioned being.

Just You And Me

Posted on by Sarah Centrella Posted in Divorce, Parenting — 4 Comments ↓

..

I want to be whole again.

I can’t explain why I feel less then complete, but I do.

Tonight I read stories to my three little monkeys, my baby girls head on my lap and as I ran my hands through her hair. I couldn’t help but think…it’s just you and me kids.
As crazy as it sounds in the past year I never really thought about that. There has been so much going on, so much focus on survival and trying to make every day as happy and upbeat as possible for them, that I’d never just stopped to recognize that the very real possibility exists that this may be the shape and size of my family from here on out. That it might always be, just me, and just them.

It’s hard to say this without sounding like that isn’t enough. Because of course it is on one level. We have each other, which in and of its self is an amazing blessing. But when you are a little girl you don’t dream of this.

You don’t dream of sitting home at night after the longest day in history, after:
Showers
Breakfast
Packing Lunches
Dressing everyone
Daycare
Work
Gym
Daycare
Dinner
Bath
Stories
House cleaning
Laundry and more work…alone.
You dream of having a family. Someone to share all that with. Someone to commiserate with, someone to hear your stories. Give you perspective. Give you balance.

You want to be able to talk about your children to the only other person alive who can understand, love and get every little thing about them they way you do.

You need advice.
You need help.
You need support.
You need love.

And I guess it’s one thing if you’ve never experience that. If you’ve never had a marriage, and that family bond before, then you don’t know what you’re missing. But if you have, then no matter the tough times, you can appreciate, talking to another adult. Cooking dinner for someone who appreciates it and doesn’t prefaces every bite with “this is discussing; I don’t waaaaant to eat this”.

You can jointly carry 900 things to the car.

You can alternate bringing in the groceries while the other puts them away.

You can pee in a bathroom on a road trip instead of on the side of the road (waking and packing 3 kids into a 76 station in the middle of the nigh..bad idea).

You can run to the pharmacy at 3 am for children’s Tylenol; without waking up and packing all three kids out to the parking lot and into the car, and out of the car, and into the pharmacy, and back into the house from the parking lot, and back to bed, at what’s now 3:40 am….

You can cry on a shoulder with arms around your back instead of into a pillow.

There are many benefits. The greatest of which is for your children, you have the thing that they need, stability and the love and care of both their parents. But when that is gone, it’s all so fly by the seat of your pants. It’s so; make the rules up as you go. No one to relieve you when you’re stressed. No one to check you when you’re being bitchy. Just you and your thoughts and your desperate attempt to keep sane.

Even if you find someone willing to venture into this crazy life with you, they will never love or understand your children the way you do. They will always merely tolerate, or grow to love. Neither is good enough for my babies.

So little ones, it’s you and it’s me. And I guess that’s the way it’s meant to be.

~written by Sarah Centrella

12 Months…

Posted on by Sarah Centrella Posted in Divorce, My Stories — No Comments ↓

One year ago today my face lay on the hardwood floor.

My body lifeless.
My mind numb.
My life over.

I lay there asking God, why? Why? How could this happen to me? What have I done to deserve this? I had loved this man for 16 years. I had 3 babies at home, 2 of them barely a year old. I didn’t have $20 to my name. No job. No access to bank accounts. I had no dippers. No formula to feed my babies. No rent money. No car.
Nothing.
Literately I was left with nothing.
No income and no way to take care of my children.

I lay there with the distinct feeling that the world had screeched to a slow and bitter end. That the past 2 years of losing our home, losing a baby, losing everything I had spent my whole life working for was just a prerequisite to this moment. My life had lead up to this: my lifeless body lying in a puddle of tears on the floor.

Then without knowing how, or from where, strength arrived. The will to survive. The desire to live and not be swallowed whole by this massive cloud of darkness took over.

It must be similar to when you’re in a desert about to die of dehydration. Your children strapped to your back, when the will to fight to the death to find the oasis consumes your mortal body. Something inside you takes over and the belief that there is actually an oasis begins to grow seeds of hope in your shattered heart. In the end it may just be an oasis, a mirage, but that is better than the alternative of sitting and waiting to die.

So you strap your children to your back and you stand up and you put one wobbly foot in front of the next, and before you know it you have walked a mile. And one day you reflect and you have come farther than you ever dreamed a possibility. Then by some miracle you notice that your children are walking beside you and they are no longer hungry or thirsty. You are providing for them. They are ok. Happy even. You are in fact surviving. You are reaching the oasis.

One year ago today my life was black.

I look back on the past 12 months and even I am amazed. When I was a girl I envisioned this life. I knew I was capable of becoming somebody. Of rising to the top. Of surviving the unthinkable. I knew that deep inside me I possessed the ability to be whatever it was I set my mind to.

Somewhere along the way between a girl and a women, I lost that confidence and that dream. I gave in to life and gave up on me.

For a long time.

Oh what 12 months can do! Somehow I managed to feed and clothe my children with no income. Somehow I managed to find a job in a jobless economy. Somehow I managed to make it from day to day, and month to month. I honestly don’t know how. I had no idea I was capable of such primal survival.

Today was my second day at a job I won out of sheer determination and drive. I set my sights high a long time ago. Higher then I even dare dream. I dreamed that one day I would have a great, powerful job. Where I would travel the county pitching executives, that I would be a force to be reckoned with.

I got that job.
I GOT THAT JOB!
I worked my ass off, and I got it.

I’m providing for my children. I’m getting them back into a house after suffering for a year in a tiny apartment. I started from zero. Literately. Thank god for family and friends that held my hand and supported me those first long difficult months.

I’m standing on my own two feet. I’m stand in heals! My shoulders back and my head high. I’m not there by any means, but in truth, I can’t believe what a difference 12 months has made.

Thank god. This is the life I dreamed of as a girl.

This is my life.

My Mantra

Posted on by Sarah Centrella Posted in Motivation & Inspiration — 2 Comments ↓
I deserve success.
I will not let anything or anyone distract me from my goals.
I am here to win.
I am here to prove myself.
I am here to lead not follow.
I am here to break barriers.
To shatter glass ceilings and break records.
I am here to show them how it’s done.
I own this!
~Written by Sarah Centrella 
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