Happy New Year to you and your BGPS! 

Yesterday the  BGP Gals toasted to 2013 and celebrated their successes of 2012! Start the year off right and reflect on your past year to inspire you into the next. This quote inspires us to pursue and fulfill all of our hopes and goals for this year TODAY! So don’t waste any more time. Put ‘em on and pull ‘em up and start YOUR year.

Let us know what has you inspired for 2013!

You can use our favorite guide brought to you by Dallas Travers. 

We wrote about it in our previous post “Oh the Places You’ll Go?” You can also access it here.

http://www.dallastravers.com/goal-getting/celebrate-2012-create-2013/

There is nothing like the end of a year to prompt you to ask yourself: Where Am I? How did I get here? And where am I going next? For me those questions have taken on a much more literal meaning. In the last year I have woken up in the middle of the night, more times than not, wondering where am I? With my brain struggling in between sleep and wake, trying to identify my whereabouts in a groggy fog. I would search the darkened room for something familiar, anything to jog my memory of where I was.

From October 2011 until about June of this year I was house sitting, house crashing, sleeping in guest rooms and sofa beds and then dividing my time at my parents’ home outside of LA. Over the course of that time I had stayed in 4 different homes off and on, unpacking and repacking my suitcase. The summer of the BGP’s, of temp jobs and pounding the pavement with my new attitude adjustment wasn’t quite enough to pay the bills on my most amazing, wonderful, can’t -believe- I had to give it up-charming-studio apartment. I had to move. I remember crying myself to sleep one night literally asking God “please don’t make me move, please don’t make me move” -knowing very well I was going to have to move.

This was my worst case scenario. My studio was my haven, a joy to live in, and I was so grateful for it. It was also my first “grown-up” apartment.   My collegiate/post collegiate roommates and I went our separate ways and I was living alone for the first time. And I loved it. When I moved in I thought it was a magical apartment. (It must have the  HUGE closet that disillusioned me). Things were finally going to fall into place. My career would take off and finally the guy was going to show up in my Trader Joe’s produce aisle or at my local coffee haunt -oh and those last stubborn 15 lbs were going to fall off as well. This was it- with accent pillows and all.

I know now there is no such thing as a magical apartment, or for that matter, a magical job or relationship.  And for as lovely and perfect as I knew my place to be, it was still just an apartment. Also this being my “worst case scenario”, while being extremely disappointing, and not ideal , it was survivable. I didn’t end up on the floor in the fetal position in shame wondering why had I failed; thanks to my girlfriends, who came over with Margaritas and packing materials, I got through it. This unexpected and odd detour revealed how much love have I in my life. I had friends who opened their homes to me. Fed me. Prayed for and with me. Took care of me and let me cry and lament my worries and fears.

Now as this year comes to a close and my 30th birthday, a mere 110 days away, I wish I could tell you I had an answer or a clear step by step plan I could now rely on to map out where I am and where I will be. The real  answer is I have no idea.  But I do have a  BGP end of year tradition that I find very helpful that I would like to pass onto you. The BGP gals like to take stock of their year together. We meet up at our favorite coffee spot (which used to be the site of our ritual bitch and  whine sessions); we write down our successes and evaluate the things we would like to improve upon in the next year.  It is amazing how much we discount in terms of accomplishments and forget to celebrate the big and small successes. So I encourage you to take some time to celebrate all the BGP moments and Bravos! of your year-no matter how insignificant they may seem. That is why it is helpful to work on this with a good friend who will remind you of all the good and (sometimes uncomfortable) highlights of your year.

I am not sure where I am going next or what will come in the New Year, but I do have the pleasure of going home tonight and wondering underneath the lights of my very own Christmas tree in my very own apartment.

*We have included the questionnaire we like to follow for our End of Year wrap up. We like to use the Actors Advocate Career Coach Dallas Travers’s exercise as a guide (while it is focused on actors you don’t have to be pursuing an acting career to find it helpful). So grab a friend, a pen, and your BGP’s and have some fun celebrating your year! (Cut and paste the link below) 

http://www.dallastravers.com/goal-getting/celebrate-2012-create-2013/

Merry Christmas and we will see you and your BGP’s in the New Year!

RP

The Magic of the BGP’s!
Via someecards

The BGP Gals hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving and are getting excited for the Christmas Season! What are you most Thankful for?

(Source: craftykat-mycraftyplayground.blogspot.com)

Here is a great list (short and long) to improve your BGP selves! Don’t worry our next entry is on its way. (We promise!) In the meantime enjoy this link and subscribe to their list! Their weekly tips are always inspiring and practical.

XOXO The BGP Gals

Great advice! Check back for our next entry!!

“Who’s on YOUR BGP team?” Our next  entry coming soon!

Emily Dickinson

Last Sunday was supposed to be my wedding day, but instead it was just a normal, hot August day. No wedding. I spent the day doing normal Sunday things like going to church, going to the grocery store and going into Target for something very specific and coming out with a mirror, a tank top, 2 rolls of paper towels, a bike pump, blue nail polish and gum. No one at church, Trader Joe’s or Target knew that I was supposed to be a bride that day. All day I carried it around, like one of those zits you feel but no one can see, it hurts and it’s all you can think about but there is nothing you can do to make it go away.

It’s still surreal; the whole thing. I never thought it would happen to me, the whole broken engagement thing, but it did. I always thought it happened to people who should have seen it coming. Or people who were sloppy in relationships and reckless with hearts. Or people who didn’t listen to their gut. But come to find out, sometimes it’s not about any of those things and there may never be a good logical reason for “the why”. All I know is that my life is in a very different place today, than I thought it would be in late August. I’m somewhere in between my old normal and my new normal, and nothing feels normal.

I’m in the middle of things. It’s the space between what went really, really wrong and whatever is next. For the record, I don’t like being in the middle. People always talk about it like it’s this great place where you learn so much about life and yourself and you grow, but I think the people who say that are not in the middle of anything. They’re on the other side of whatever “it” was or they just haven’t been in the space between. I don’t know if I am growing or learning much of anything – I’m mostly just bearing it.

There’s really no preparing for the middle, it just happens so suddenly. Someone dies, or a precious relationship ends, a diagnosis happens, a dream falls apart – old normal can change in an instant and even the biggest pair of Big Girl Panties don’t seem to be big enough. I wish I could just say I’ve been “puttin’ em on and pullin’ em up” and that I have been marching through this middle with sass and vigor and resolve, but the truth is, more days than not I have been going commando.

Some days my heart hurts so badly that my only relief is to get in my car and turn on the radio as loud as I can so that I can’t hear my sadness for a few songs. I have belted out everything from Rhianna’s “We Found Love”, to Green Day’s “Time of your Life” to more recently the pop hit of the summer Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe” (I’ve almost got the entire thing memorized). Other days, I just need to talk about it (again) to the people who will listen (God bless ‘em, every one). There are lots of days when I would give anything to hear his voice again, to get back to normal, to talk about that thing we talked about, to be the me I was with him. Those days are worst. Then there are those days when I laugh easily and my head feels clear and my chest light – I love those days.

There is no telling when I am going to get to the other side. I don’t even know what it looks like or where it is or how much longer I have to go to get there. I know I am in a different place than I was because I can talk about the middle. It’s an identified place and no longer a free fall.  I don’t want be here, its not what I had planned and yet, as the days go by and the wedding day has now come and gone and the phone calls have stopped and the expectation of an explanation wanes, I find myself starting to get acquainted with a different me. Maybe that’s all I can do right now, just get acquainted with these surroundings, with this me, and with these circumstances. I don’t know, I’ve never been here before.

So, I’ll keep you posted. I’ve got my Big Girl Panties dangling around my ankles and maybe, just maybe I’ll start working them up, because something tells me I am going to need them if I am going to make it through the middle.

~ LB - A BGP Friend

Martha Graham (Taken with Instagram)