The photo on the left (pink dress & hat) is of my very first fashion show in Baltimore, MD in 2000. Since I am only 5'6", I don't fit the requirements for a runway model, so I had to make sure I was skinny enough to be considered. The picture on the right was a fashion show for designer Crissy Phillips in Philadelphia in 2014 (I think). Every time I look at this picture, now, I can only just give thanks and praise that I was spared.  I did not end up a casualty of the disease that had me in bondage for so long. At the age of 24, I was barely 100 pounds.  But I didn't think that was a problem.  I was only focused on one thing: being thin!  If I would have even imaged myself as the picture on the right, I probably would have sacrificed all I had to get some kind of plastic surgery to prevent weight gain.  See, my left picture self looked at my right picture self as fat.  Although I am still small, compared to what I was, my thinking was I was fat. ...

Every morning when I wake up, I open my Morning Meditation playlist on YouTube and just sit.  I don't pray (yet) or do anything else.  I just sit. Do you know how hard it is to just be still?  It's one thing to be quiet.  But to be still takes a greater discipline.  Because in being still, you have to silence the "inner thoughts"  the "inner voices".  I'm the type of person, if I wake up in the middle of the night, I can NOT think about anything or I will be awake.  It can be the simplest thing.  Once my mind gets going, there's no turning it off. Even to go back to sleep for a few precious moments of snoozing. As I sit, usually on the bed, I focus on the music that I am listen to.  It's all instrumental.  No words, no even instrumentals of songs I know.  Just strings, flutes, and piano.  Anyone that knows me, knows I LOVE a good string driven song, especially if a Cello is involved. I don't talk to God (yet), I do...