You aren’t born hot pink and fire red and gold glitter with rose gold chrome. I think it’s something you grow into, something you eventually become and if you’re lucky, still recognize when you’re young. You always bring glamour to where you are, and structure, and sometimes, those things all come together at the same time and give someone else a better way of seeing. 

I think both you and I were lucky in a sense that we were gifted real leadership and a sense of purpose. A sense of family and structure in that frequency. In a way the both of us maybe didn’t have that before so we have felt such a powerful responsibility to provide that to others, no matter what the cost. 

I just want you to know that you did succeed because you gave me the ability to build a team too. Your spirit is not a job. It is not a team. It isn’t a building or a task. 

 It is the parts of yourself that you willingly extend to others in order for them to grow. When that is the head space you are in, your power is unlimited. I actually started this painting using foundation and lipstick. Which was a total mess and ended up not working. You taught me to carry myself like a lady and boss. You taught me to put my passion into the gift of structure and leadership that I was given. You listened empathetically to me complain about trying to walk around in suits and you took the time to go through like eight work books and a P&L for six months with 77 other hours of work a day. Underneath the grind, no matter how deep it got - you never lost your humanity, your magic, your glamour and your grace. Even if you don’t know who you’re looking at in the mirror anymore. I know who you are. 

The grace and professionalism you extended to me is immortal. It will never leave me, or you. My side effects of life on the other side are that I am very quick to tell myself I worked really hard to fail. I find myself thinking sadly about the two years of my life I completely wasted. All of the things my husband had to do alone and how much my Dogs missed me every day. I beat myself up saying I will never get that time back. I can extremely quickly go into a loop of negativity with a story of how unmanageable and crazy it got in the end for me. The self pity of the shit I put up with runs deep even a year later. I’m sharing that because all it really is is hurt. Hurt that I put in everything I could and it didn’t go my way. 

But. I got to learn from you. And I got the Barcelo family. And Kim and Jaque. Tianna gave me a class and it grew my business like crazy. I got to move to the beach. I got a lot more than I didn’t get. So even though I can still go to the vortex of regret quickly, if I check myself it’s easy to remember that I didn’t fail, I grew. A lot of the time they feel the same for me. 

When I used to go to burning man on Fridays they would burn the Man. It is about a thirty story structure and a very, very big fire. 50,000 people gather around it and it’s like a huge party. Screaming, dancing, fire dancers. 

That Sunday the temple gets burned. The Temple is always created by an architect named David Best. For the 6 days prior people write on the temple, meditate in it, leave something in it as an altar or  memorial for people they have loved, lost or anything. In 2014 in particular it was named The Temple of Grace. It was a masterpiece and as it burned in the darkness of night 50,000 people sat around watching it go up in flames in silence. I will never forget that feeling. The light of freedom and release finally cutting into the blackness of the desert sky. 

We are all a temple of grace in a way. We show those sides to others with various lessons at different levels of intensity. You have given so much. It has cut into the intensity of the dark whether you can feel it or not. Thank you. 

Enjoy your salvation back into the light. Your grace. Your fire. They never took it from you. They just made it hard to find. I love you.