Irony

8/12/2024

Today marks 11 years since the last time I talked to mom. Today also marks the 11th family that my nonprofit I opened in mom’s honor has helped with funeral flowers.

Today is the day 11 years ago that I finished doing flowers for the first LGBT wedding show, mom was so proud and excited for me during our last conversation. And today my daughter and I finished the flowers hand in hand for a funeral of someone my daughter knew, someone who championed her in her dream to become a nail technician.

Tomorrow is mom’s death anniversary. Tomorrow is the funeral for the young mother that lost her life to domestic violence. A harsh reminder of how close I was to being in a casket myself from domestic violence at one time in my life.

My daughter who just turned 23 decided to do more floral work this year on her own after spending her entire life being my assistant. At 22 she started her business as a nail tech and another business as a florist. At 22, I escaped Domestic Violence with 4 young boys and started life over. At 22, we both began anew in our own ways.

Sometimes life has a way of helping us recognize our achievements. We get so wrapped up in the day to day craziness that we tend to not see the bigger picture. Don’t forget to take a step back to acknowledge the ironies of life. The little things count, but they’re just pieces to a bigger puzzle. Keep building your own unique puzzle, you never know how amazing it will look as it continues to grow.

Valuing Myself

Towards the end of 2023 I decided that in 2024 I will unapologetically value myself both personally and professionally. I knew some pain would come with that because growing pains aren’t always easy to go through. 2023 marked 10 years since mom’s passing. Has it really been that long? It feels like it was just a week ago. My grieving is deeper than I try to let show, though my kids can tell I’m changed and lost a huge part of my being. I’ve become a fraction of a soul it feels like. A complete, unimaginable pain that can only be felt by those that have lost someone so close to them. Because I’ve been so lost in grief people have learned how to manipulate me, use me, walk all over me and mistreat me.

I had rebuilt myself after being a victim of domestic violence and became a survivor. After fleeing with kids, moving and moving and moving again for our safety and well-being, I finally found peace, strength and new beginnings. I was determined and successful. I was healing physically, mentally, spiritually. I found new purpose for myself outside of motherhood. I reconnected and reestablished relationships. I reconnected with my inner artist that I call therapy. I was proud of myself once again, but in a new humble sort of way.

I talked to mom the night before she passed. She had been sick for some time and was tired but excited for a floral exhibit I was preparing for at the first LGBTQ Wedding show after gay weddings were passed into law in California. She was kinda’ loopy, but I figured it was because I had wakened her up when I called. The next morning, I got ‘the call’ and I remember gasping for air like I myself was dying and gasped for air. It was then that I realized she had taken her own life. We later found her brand new bottle of 120 Norco pills empty along with her suicide note. She had told me she was “sick but not flu like sick”, she had already taken the pills the last time I talked to her. Gratefully I was given a chance to tell her I love her one last time at least. Part of my entire being died with mom. Who am I now? How do I survive life and everything it throws at me without her? My daily phone calls on my way to work and all the in between ‘hey mom’ things. They’re in the past, and each day becomes another day further in the past. Every waking day is a battle within me to function.

I have grown tired of being weary, being weak, being mentally lethargic. I’ve lost both parents and have no siblings; however, I have decided to step out of the shadow of grief and let it live within me but not let it overshadow me any longer. This will take time, self-preservation, patience for myself and the people close to me.

Learning to let go of codependency, let’s be real, it’s a BITCH! Especially when you have to create those boundaries with your own adult children.

It’s time. It’s time to create a new chapter in my book of life. It’s time to value myself again.

Today

(For William)

 Today, I thought of you.

Today, I smiled because you are my friend.

Today, I see the ocean coast flowers differently and appreciate them more.

Today, the ocean spoke to me softly but with firm sincerity.

Today, the ocean breeze surrounded me with its hug and reassurance for life.

Today, I look at how timeless crashing waves have been tough on the rocks, they still stand with their own beauty and timeless strength.

Today, I realized my friend is more like the ocean than I ever realized.

My friend is

Full of the colors of life

Strong and beautiful like the flowers against the salty air

Absolute yet soft spoken

Meaningful and joyful

Resilient, strong, creative, amazing and relentless against time

Today and always, I wish my friend an ocean of happiness and love.

By: Stacy Bell-Singh

---

My Scar Of Purpose

Your past doesn’t define you, it creates a path to find your purpose and build your future.

~Stacy

New Year New Decade!

Happy New Year and welcoming myself into a new decade. I just turned 50! These past few months have been super emotional for me in so many ways. COVID has interfered on so many levels on the business fronts, but thankfully we haven’t had any deaths in the family from it. As I wrapped up my 40’s I went through a lot of should haves, would haves, could haves, maybe’s and doubts personally and professionally. But here I am embarking on a new timeline in life and I feel like something just clicked and everything is going to be okay. I started a gratitude journal and I committed to get at least one entry in a week. More is better but I need to be realistic too, I’ve never been good at journaling.

I hope this year will be amazing for you. Keep one foot in front of the other. Even if you stumble, remember to look up and get up and keep moving forward even if you feel like you’re crawling. You got this!

Until next time,

~Stacy

The year is half way over!

My goodness! Where has the time gone so far this year? I think so much of it has been consumed by COVID concerns around the world in general. We have ships full of supplies and goods waiting for months in the ocean to be able to dock and unload all around the world. Governments are trying to figure out what’s best for the world, each country, each state, each community, hospitals, emergency personnel and so on. The people that have been displaced due to losing their jobs and homes, the families that have lost loved ones. And now here we are in fire season with a pandemic that has slowed but not gone away and is rearing back up with a new strain around the world again. Some of us have received our vaccinations, some have not.

I’m learning a LOT about marketing myself and my businesses and have been very lucky - blessed - with having some amazing people in my life that encourage me, teach me and lift me up when I’m feeling frustrated and lost. I’ve met new people recently that are absolutely amazing. Some are inexperienced and others have way more experience than I could even imagine having, wondering why they chose ME to assist and help me on my journey. We all have self-doubt at some time in our lives, I’ve never deemed myself worthy of being associated with people that know ‘people’. It’s always been kind of a joke, “I’ll have my people call your people”. Yet here I am, raised by a single parent, lived in shelters with kids, fled domestic violence and landing with pride, a much better self esteem and even though I still feel small in so many ways, I see myself growing - sprouting a new chapter of ‘me’. I’m in a position of helping others that are like looking in a mirror of myself at some point, and yet each person helps me learn more about myself. Who I was, who I am and who I aspire to be as I go through the metamorphosis of life. There are definitely some growing pains along the way but each experience helps us understand and form a new experience in life. Learning to trust in what life has in store for me surely isn’t easy, but I’m learning to enjoy the ride instead of forcing immediate destinations.

Life In The Fast Lane

It’s been a little crazy lately to say the least. I own a variety of small business ventures and I have a non-profit. I have a mother-in-law that turns 90 this year who lives with us, my 13- year old granddaughter that I’ve raised since she was a baby and adopted lives with us. Five adult children out on their own and 6 other grandkiddos and 4 dogs. Mother’s day is around the corner, so as a florist and then the crafty business venture, sales will be super crazy and very demanding of my time to put together and then run retail for all of that. Sure, the kiddos can help and are amazing at following my lead without asking questions, everyone just falls in place like a fine piece of silk, but ultimately I created the chaotic world of entrepreneurship. Yet I wouldn’t change much of anything. How do some of us thrive for this chaos? I know, there’s the psychological aspects and ‘let us look at your childhood’ type diagnosis, but really it’s who ‘I’ am. I thrive to be successful and see it as a challenge to balance home, family and business. My home is clean but well lived in (obviously a huge difference), I talk to the adult kids regularly and really loving the time I get with the grandkids that their parents make time for whether it’s in person or over video chat (BTW the FB portal thing is really cool for story time).

As a domestic violence survivor, and being raised by a single mom I thrive for achieving difficult goals (there’s that therapy diagnosis). No parent ever sits back after their children are adults and says YEP I made the best decision every single time and I wouldn’t change a thing. We all look back and say damn - I wish I would have handled this differently or I wish I could have encouraged that more. But the fact is we do the best we can with what’s at hand in that moment and we hope that all the experiences are life lessons that will either be remembered fondly and repeated in some form of positivity or they’ll hate something and hopefully not repeat that with their own kids; other than time outs and whatnots.

So what’s the point of this post? Just sharing to let other’s know it’s okay to feel overwhelmed sometimes. We all have a lot on our plates, everyone is different. Everyone’s stress is different. Everyone handles stress differently. With that, I’d like to challenge you to open a door for a stranger, compliment someone on their shirt, when you are passing someone in the store and have to say ‘excuse me’ tell them thank you and have a good day. You never know how something so little can lift someone up from their own stress. Compliments and manners from strangers can sometimes turn a frown to a smile.

Do your part to make the world a better place.

Perfect Rock Of Life

Life is like a rock. In its youth, it is broken off to travel a life of it’s own much like a newborn child. It will be played with, kicked around, maybe used as a companion in a child’s imaginative structure just to be taken down again. For a while that rock will be ignored and left to weather the storms of life, at times meeting with other rocks and smoothing away the rough edges it once had in its youth.

Time passes and life has it’s twists and turns; much like the life of a person, the rock becomes smooth yet still firm in what it is. The rock has weathered every situation, every storm, every kick, every skip in the river and structure made and yet it has become the most absolute piece of perfection to be admired by all. It has become the rock of life.

You are a perfect rock of life.

By: Stacy J. Bell-Singh

For : Ross Conklin (RIP)

What a year!

What a year 2020 was, right?! And obviously I seriously slacked at doing this whole blog thing. Life turned us all upside down to figure out a new ‘normal’. Essential workers are still out there kickin’ ass to be there for the rest of us while putting their own lives and families at risk. Many small businesses have succumbed to the lack of income and have had to shut down. People have been working from home and/or doing distance learning from home. Many have re-learned skills they may have either forgotten or just haven’t had time for during a crazy busy work week out of the home: cooking, baking, crafting, building, home maintenance or just plain reconnecting with yourself and your family. But while we’re here, let’s take a moment to remember all those lost this last year…

Moving forward, let’s all try to do our part to mello this virus out so we can reopen businesses, get the kids back to school and start to get people out of their depressions. Now that we’ve all been at this for a while now, what have you done or are planning to do to help someone else out? We have people in hospitals and nursing homes that can’t have visitors. How about having the kids make cards and mail them to a local facility for the residents? Maybe send an actual letter or card in the mail to a friend or family member so they get something other than a bill or junk mail? Be creative to make someone smile and let’s fight this together and hopefully have a better year ahead of us.

Self Image

How do we REALLY see ourselves?

When you look in the mirror, who do you see? What do you see? Are you looking at who others believe you to be or maybe you see who you wish you could be or what you wish you looked like? Then you see a picture of yourself and WOW that’s not who I see in the mirror! Self reflection is an interesting process all in itself to say the least.

Magazine covers, television, pageants, movies, society - look what they have done to us as a whole. What IS perfect? Even produce - we are programmed to pick the most colorful, best shaped fruit according to what is advertised. Tons of produce goes to waste every year just because of aesthetics. Animals are left in shelters because they aren’t visually appealing even though they may be the absolute, most sweetest match for someone. Why do we look at everything and everyone so negatively?

So, how do we handle the negativity? The put-downs? The teasing? The increasing animosity of the appearance of one compared to another? The bullying? The hate? The suicides?!

Let’s start with talking to each other with respect and kindness. Stop with the comments like, “they’re sweet but I’d never date them because they’re too chubby and that acne has GOT to go”. Or even, “that person is super fun and trustworthy, I love them for who they are but I’d be embarrassed to be seen with someone so thin and scrawny”. These kind of comments, and worse, are what bring each other down leaving mental and emotional scars and sometimes physical scars from self harm and attempted suicide. Or sometimes lead to a person’s funeral.

So what can YOU do to have a positive impact and help change how our world sees each other? Start by being honest with yourself about yourself. Stop putting yourself down, especially in front of younger kids. Look in the mirror and say, ‘welp, I’m not a touched up photo on a magazine - I’m real and I’m living life the best I can’. Write positive affirmations on the mirror so you see them every time you look in that mirror. Let your siblings see, your parents, your roommates, your kids. Create a positive habit and challenge others to do the same. It’s always nice when others say positive things to you, but you need to receive it and believe it.

Go grocery shopping and buy the produce that others won’t buy. A scarred, unevenly formed tomato is still a tomato, right? A scarred person is still a person. A 3-legged dog is still a dog. Verbalize to whomever you are shopping with or the cashier that it’s a shame so much produce goes to waste because of appearance. Post a picture on your social media before and after you make your meal. Take a picture with your friends or kids capturing that moment in time. That ‘ugly’ produce just made you realize that scrawny, 3-legged dog you passed up at the shelter was actually very sweet - go adopt it!

Now - back to people. You just ate a really good sandwich from produce that wasn’t photo-pretty and adopted the best dog for your lifestyle and you’re feeling pretty good about those choices. Now make the choice to be kind to yourself, to the strangers, to people you may see often but have been visually put off so you haven’t taken the time to get to know someone that may be someone that fits in your circle perfectly and you’ll be friends for the next 50 years. Don’t waste your time, your energy, your own growth, your inner glow or dim your outward shine. Step up and make a difference.

Let’s change our world for the better and bring smiles to each other faces. Help someone who looks like they’re struggling to reach something at the store. Pay for someone else’s coffee or lunch if you can. Hold the door open for a stranger and compliment something about them and tell them to have a nice day. Lifting a person up takes seconds and can make their day.

Now what are YOU going to do about that person in the mirror?