Y’all. Y’ALL.

Y’all. Y’ALL.

Today’s blog is probably going to be a little bit of a mess, but maybe that’s appropriate because lately I feel like I’m a little bit of a mess.

Honestly, I feel like the entire month of August has been one giant… well, we’re not going to call it a disaster. 😂 We’re going to call it a learning experience.

That sounds much healthier.

But seriously, for the last few weeks I haven’t felt like myself.

And the weirdest part is—I can’t tell you exactly why.

I just feel uneasy.

I haven’t been sleeping well. I feel unsettled. I feel like something in my life isn’t quite right, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.

I know I have a LOT going on. I know I’m trying to do too much. I know there are approximately 847 tabs open in my brain at any given moment.

But this feels different.

I don’t want to say I’m depressed, because I know what depression feels like for me. I’ve lived with it for most of my life.

When I’m truly depressed, I can shut myself in a dark room for three days and not want to see or talk to anybody. I just need the world to leave me alone while I work through it.

Depression is real. And I know it can look completely different for everybody.

I’ve been very fortunate that most of the time, I can eventually pull myself back out. I have to go through it—I can’t just snap my fingers and make it disappear—but probably 90% of the time, I eventually find my way back to myself.

I also deal with anxiety from time to time, but I know what that feels like too.

This doesn’t feel like either one.

It just feels like something is… off.

I’m not motivated. I procrastinate over the dumbest little things. Things that would normally take me ten minutes suddenly feel like something I absolutely do not want to deal with.

And I keep giving myself pep talks.

Normally, I’m pretty damn good at giving myself a pep talk.

Right now?

Apparently Motivational Speaker Tammy has left the building. 😂

But when I really look at everything happening in my life, maybe it makes a little more sense.

I got my feelings hurt over some things with my kids around my birthday. Whether anybody else understands why it hurt me or not, it hurt me. And feelings don’t magically disappear just because you tell yourself to get over them.

Then there’s social media.

OH. MY. GOD.

If y’all only knew what an absolute shit show my social media has been behind the scenes, you would die.

I’ve had four or five different people help me with different things, and somehow I currently have FOUR different Amazon affiliate accounts/storefronts.

FOUR.

Do you know what that means?

Apparently, I don’t either. 😂

Because I have been over here posting links, sharing things, watching people click them and thinking I’m doing everything right…

Only to discover I’m not even getting credit for some of it.

Do you know how heartbreaking that is?

Not just because of the money, but because of the TIME.

I have spent hours and hours doing this stuff because I thought I was building something correctly.

And that has taught me a very expensive lesson:

Sometimes paying a professional costs a whole lot less than paying the price of doing something wrong.

There are plenty of people who know how to post, link things and do pieces of social media. But when you’re building something that is supposed to make money, sometimes you need to pay the extra money and get somebody who REALLY knows what they’re doing.

Because I can promise you—with the money I’ve probably lost from things not being set up correctly, I could have paid a professional ten times over.

Learning experience number 4,782. 😂

Then I have my invention.

Something I have worked on for YEARS has now been turned over for a licensing deal.

That should be exciting.

And it IS exciting.

So why in the hell is it stressing me out?

I have absolutely no idea.

Then, since we’re confessing things today, let’s talk about money.

Y’all…

I have spent money for the last six months like my last name is Rockefeller.

Apparently nobody bothered to tell me that it is, in fact, NOT.

😂😂😂

And summer is my slowest time of the entire year.

June, July and August?

TOAST.

I still sell things, so don’t misunderstand me. But it’s nowhere near what I’m accustomed to during my busy months.

And then there’s one of my businesses that I have been saying for YEARS I want to be done with.

Every year I say it.

Every year I keep doing it.

But something feels different this time.

I think I’m actually ready to be done.

Like DONE done.

And maybe that’s part of what all of this is.

Maybe I have too many chapters open at the same time, and I know some of them need to end before I can figure out what the next one is supposed to look like.

Because here I am at 56 years old asking myself questions I thought I would have answered by now.

What am I doing?

Where am I going?

Am I going to succeed?

Am I going to fail?

And probably the biggest one:

God, where do YOU want me to go?

Maybe that’s what has me so unsettled.

The unknown.

I am standing somewhere between the life I know and whatever is coming next, and I can’t see what’s on the other side yet.

And I HATE not knowing.

I believe in God. Very much.

And I know He has never let me down.

Ever.

I have been through some SHIT in my life. Situations where, if I sat down and told y’all every story, you probably wouldn’t believe half of them.

There have been times when I didn’t know how in the world something was going to work out.

And somehow, it did.

There have been situations I should have never made it through.

And somehow, I did.

There have been things I thought were going to destroy me that ended up redirecting my entire life.

And looking back, I can see God’s hand in places where I absolutely could not see it while I was standing in the middle of the mess.

So I KNOW I’m going to be okay.

That’s the crazy part.

Deep down, I genuinely know that.

But knowing everything will eventually be okay doesn’t mean you always feel okay while you’re getting there.

Maybe this is just one of those seasons.

Maybe everything feels uncomfortable because something in my life is changing.

Maybe God is closing some doors I keep trying to hold open.

Maybe He’s trying to push me toward something I can’t see yet.

Or maybe I just have too many damn tabs open and need to close a few. 😂

I don’t know.

People always talk about the calm before the storm.

Well, maybe sometimes there’s also a storm before the calm.

Maybe something really great is waiting for me on the other side of all this mess.

Maybe these last few weeks—the mistakes, the hurt feelings, the money stress, the business decisions, the social media disasters, the uncertainty—are all part of getting me wherever I’m supposed to go next.

I’ve had a lot of “learning experiences” in my life that I definitely did NOT appreciate while I was learning them.

But almost every one of them made me smarter.

Stronger.

Wiser.

Or at least gave me a really good story later. 😂

So maybe right now I don’t need to have the whole thing figured out.

Maybe I just need to trust God, trust the process, clean up a few of these messes, close some of these damn tabs and keep moving.

Because if there is one thing I know about myself, it’s this:

I may be a jumbled wreck right now, but I’m not done.

Not even close.

And maybe six months from now I’ll read this blog and finally understand exactly what all of this was preparing me for.

God, I sure hope so.

Because right now?

I have no fucking clue. 😂