Bloom Where You’re Planted

You see that plant up there in the pic? That’s me. I’m actually more so the middle green leaf. The brightest one. The one that’s in the process of blooming. Spreading out even though my surroundings appear to be either dead or dying.
This struggling plant of mine is a Bird of Paradise. I’ve always wanted one. Her name is Pooh Pooh, and she sits in my bathroom. While in the bathroom earlier this week, I took a look at Pooh Pooh, and said, ‘Wow, we have a lot in common…’.
Earlier this year, Covid-19 shuffles all of us around, and ushered us all into our homes. It was during this time, that my former employer decided it was the appropriate time to terminate me. Meh. I was ready to cut ties anyway. I had began to dread going in, and interacting with the business owner was a nightmare. So here I was, jobless, with no backup plan. Everyday it appeared that the world as I knew was slipping away, into the distance. Practically dying. Yet, I was beginning to feel more alive that I had in years! I had more time than I had ever before to be with my kids. I was cooking, teaching via homeschool, cleaning, sleeping in. Being a mom! It was great. It was a high. But, as we all know, every high comes down, and I was forced to think about what was next. I had sat on my business for over a year, and done nothing with it. I was unsure of what direction to take it in. Yet, I knew I had to do something and move forward. But how? And to what?
That’s where Mattie James came in.
If you’ve never heard of her, she’s a self-made influencer guru. Her super power is making new influencers feel as though they can conquer the world, and then showing them how. I had joined her private Facebook group in May, just a couple of weeks after I was fired. I simply joined the group, and left it at that. The next several weeks, I found myself really trying to figure out what to do with my brand, Chicago Style Cult. As I was looking at my account on Instagram, and thinking what a shame it is to have an unpublished website for it that I pay for, and never have done a thing with it. It was at that moment that Mattie came up in my timeline. She was doing a challenge for the Month of July, where bloggers would have to post a new blog post Monday-Friday. It was my ‘Aha’ moment. Chicago Style Cult had officially become a blog.
That was nearly four weeks ago.
Today is the next to last day of the challenge, and I can’t believe that I made it this far in the challenge! My blog, in less than 30 days, went from my hobby, to my passion, to my business. Incredible! And as it appeared that everything was fading away around me that was familiar, things that I thought I needed and depended on, here I was, blooming. Imagine that.
So whenever I look at Pooh Pooh, I smile now. I even trim back the dead leaves. Because, as we all know, that’s the only way to grow. And not just grow, but bloom, and flourish. And that’s what exactly what I intend to do!

Yours in Style,

XoXoMo