Vi-sis-i-tood

vicissitudes: successive, alternating, or changing phases or conditions, as of life or fortune; ups and downs. 

This was my plan. Grow up, go to college, meet a boy, get married, have babies, be the best wife and momma the world has ever seen and live happily ever after serving my church and family till the day I died. I convinced myself that this plan was foolproof, the perfect ingredients to a happy fulfilled life. Wow.

Not only was I grossly naive, I was incredibly misled. I had this plan for years and no one told me life might not go according to my plan. My adult life started out, what I had deemed, picture perfect. I left home, went to college, met a boy, dated for 4 months, got engaged, married 10 months later, quit school, moved in with in-laws, didn't get pregnant, worked in retail... wait... wait... 

...This was not the Plan.

For some reason things kept changing! Why wasn't my life going according to this perfect plan that was laid out from infancy? Well because the plan I made was not my own. "My plan" was a plan that was heavily indoctrinated, religiously conditioned, spoon fed, patriarchy led, and society projected to into my every reason for existence.

I feel incredibly blessed to have had an awakening from the nightmare I once deemed a fantasy. This awakening came at a cost. A cost to my comfort, a cost to my relationships and a cost to my identity.  Though costly, my lack of resistance to the vicissitudes of the last few years has been an investment on my soul. This rebellion against myself has brought me closer to my true self. Someone who is quite the opposite of everything she ever dreamt of.

Hi my name is Lisa and I am woman who has come to embrace the vicissitudes of life. Going with the ebb and flow has brought me closer to my true self. My unique and unconventional self. My sensitive but adaptable self. My hardworking, capable, ambitious, and WORTHY self.

Welcome, in this space I hold space for all that we are, all that we are not, and all we are yet to become. In this space I hold no shame for the lives that didn't go according to plan, the lives who choose to go against the grain. All I ask is that we live unapologetically and embrace the divine person we were destined to become. In turn, may we also celebrate the individuality of others.