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Believe you can and you will!

carriesuepepper • Jul 14, 2010

When I stepped out into the morning at 5:20, a soft cool breeze greeted me as I stood on the flagstones in my nightgown.  It’s amazing that we’re having this coolness in mid July here in Sacramento.  The sky was just starting to brighten and birds sang in the branches and I remembered all those days that I had slept in past 7 – missing all this.  At 6, way up in the very top of our oak tree, I saw the golden light just starting.  Leaves brightened and birds began to gather in the uppermost branches to greet the morning.  Life beginning anew each day is such a glorious gift and I thank God for each day I have to live in this world and that I have challenges and struggles and a mind that can learn and grow and help me reach out to others with what I have learned. 

Right now, many people are scared; they are losing their jobs; they are losing wages that once put food on the table; that once paid for trips and extras they now have given up. There is an answer and it is real – but people need to hit bottom sometimes before they can see it.  They need to want something so badly that they are willing to listen to something that is different, to something that may feel wrong – but if they really want change and they want a way, and they want to walk down a path of freedom and never have to worry again, they will hear the message. 

I want to grab those I care about by the shoulders and look firmly into their eyes, I want to tell them this company coupled with hard work and diligence will set them free, that it is just a matter of learning to believe in themselves – really that’s what it comes down to.  If we believe in ourselves and know, deep down, that we deserve the best, that we deserve to be free, to be happy, to live our dreams.

I know that I want it, but there’s a little voice in there that still says, you don’t deserve to have all the glory life has to offer.  Who is that to tell me that I don’t deserve it?  Who is that?  It is a voice that is made up of all the negative people and evil and bad news that I’ve let seep into my head over the past 50 years – all those little voices that sneak in and latch on to our souls and tell us – how dare they – that we are not good enough.  Damn those little voices.  To hell with them!  We do deserve it and we can have it – and we will have it.  IF we continue to fight and to throw off all those thoughts – to replace them with good thoughts, to stuff our brains full of all the positive affirmations and readings and books and tapes and happy stuff we can find – reprogramming.  That is what it is.  And it’s not easy – but the best part is, anyone can do it.

If they want to.

 If they want their lives to change.

 If they want freedom.

 If they want to live the lives they dreamed of, but tucked away in a box.

Open the box.  Let the dreams out.  DREAM  BIG.  What are your dreams?  What kind of life do you want?  Are you willing to fight for it?  Are you willing to stand up and say: I DESERVE THE BEST!?  I say, let’s get going and let’s do it together.

Time’s a wasting – and our lives are passing us by.   Grab hold and let’s go to the top of the mountain – up there, there is cleaner air and brighter, warmer sunlight.  Up there, there is the best food to eat and there are no nagging voices.  Up there, we can shed our old lives and throw them over the cliff – we can be who we were born to be. Perfect and exquisite beings.

The post Believe you can and you will! first appeared on Carrie Pepper.

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Today, while out on a walk in a very high wind, I spotted a little bird way up in the tip top of a bare oak tree; she was holding on every so tightly as the wind tossed and shook the branches. Hold on, little one, I thought. And just then, this quote came to mind. “A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not in the branch, but in her own wings.” ― Charlie Wardle As I watched her, I imagined my own wings and wondered just how hard the wind is going to need to blow in my life for me to loosen them, pinned tightly to my sides, unfurl them—then TRUST as the currents lift me off my (branch) and I soar effortless and without fear.

Street Signs Can Be Memory Joggers

By Carrie Pepper • 30 Nov, 2023
Out on my morning walk, street signs acted as memory joggers. Perhaps they were nudges so that I could remember, and be grateful for, these two women who were there for me as a kid. BRADFORD was the first sign. Grammy Bradford. I never called her anything else and I have no idea what her first name was, but I do remember she was there to tend to me when I was little while my mother went off to work at her government job "in procurement," which she hated. I know nothing, really, of what she did there, but I do remember the room. It seemed there were hundreds of desks in this huge room, no partitions. Dark grey desks and heavy black telephones. I visited her there a few times and she'd give me tablets and pens to keep me busy. I was ALWAYS thrilled to have a tablet and a pen! What she did there is a mystery to me, but when she and my father would argue, which was often, she'd always say, "I want my own money," and so off she went to work every morning at the Defense General Supply Center. He told her she didn't need to work, that he could support her, but, again, she wanted her own money. Back to Mrs. Bradford, Grammy. She was a bit on the heavy side (which I thought made for the best, most cuddly hugs) with long grey hair that she wore up with tons of bobby pins. She always wore a floral bib apron with large pockets and she'd fill them with pears when we'd go to that special corner of our back yard. Oh the smell! Those yellow pears and the carpet of yellow leaves. Memories of Grammy Bradford brought back memories of Thelma Massenburg. She looked exactly like Aunt Jemima (OH FOR HEAVEN'S SAKES, we can't say Aunt Jemima anymore!) Recently a friend told me he'd made pancakes and I asked what kind of syrup he used. When he said, "Pearl Milling," I thought it sounded kinda cool, but when I looked it up I found out it was the new name for Aunt Jemima syrup. SERIOUSLY? Anyway, she was wonderful. She cleaned our house, scrubbed the floors and walls and worked harder than anyone I'd ever seen. I loved her. She always wore a bandana tied around her head. She lived in a tiny reddish tar papered house with ten children. Who knows where they all slept! She was diabetic and I was a little stinker and liked to tease her with Hershey Bars. I'd wave one in front of her nose and she'd smile and say," "You bad, chile." The last time I saw her she was in the hospital and her eyes were very, very yellow. Liver disease. The scarf that was always wrapped around her head was gone and I am sure that I could hear her say, "You bad, chile," although she probably didn't. Thank you my sweet Thelma. My Aunt Jemima.
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