Cathy Teoste
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Cathy is my name. I am the little girl who throws her toys over the balcony, knowing that the children who live below will bring them up and stay to play with me. I am the little girl who locked my mom out of the apartment just for fun. I swing and sing and run and play forever free to be. I love playing with my friends and being in the middle of everything that is happening. I love baseball, music, dancing, and horseback riding. I just like having fun. I am an adventurer, a dreamer, friendly, sociable, and outgoing. I am optimistic, creative, and imaginative. I love making up stories and plays. I believe that everything is possible. I am fearless. I am comfortable and content. Sure of who I am.
Mary is shy, introverted, studious, serious, fearful, and sad. She is practical, organized and punctual. She does what the teachers tell her. She is afraid not to. She doesn’t make friends easily. She hardly speaks and when she does her voice is barely audible. Mary wears glasses but she won’t wear them in pictures. She loves books and spends hours sitting alone reading. She loves writing, poems and short stories. The music she listens to is sad not fun to dance to. Baseball is reduced to just the stats and numbers. She always looks presentable, hates getting dirty or doing anything messy. She is afraid to try new things or take a risk. She questions the right or wrong about everything.
(Excerpt from Through the Woods to the Sea: A Journey of Becoming Me)
Cathy and Mary were separate identities with visibly drawn territories. Cathy at home with family and close friends, Mary in school or with classmates or school functions. Notice how I can easily speak of myself in the third person. It became my way of life. I switched back and forth between personalities by the environment I was in and the people who I was with. It became natural and normal to me.
I moved back and forth between being Cathy and Mary easily without effort or difficulty. I wasn’t confused about my identity. I was just someone else when I was at school and myself when I was at home. Cathy was who I was. Mary was someone else. She wasn’t me. I didn’t even like her. Pictures of me throughout elementary school were of someone else. I still don’t recognize her. My sense-of-self was split apart.
I spent my adult life trying to come to terms with both parts of myself and somehow forming one cohesive person. It was a winding road full of twists and turns,
I spent years trying to fix myself going around in circles. I was always failing because I was trying to be someone else – who I thought others expected me to be.
The revelation finally came. I am all of me, every part of Cathy and Mary and so much more. It is my life journey to continue becoming who and all of who I am and meant to be.
My life has been a chaotic winding road that has lead me here today. My life has changed. I have changed. Those changes have been a long time coming. For years it was a struggle, a battle, It didn’t happen overnight it was a long process. There were many starts and stops along the way. And what I discovered is that the journey never really ends but at some point you pass through all the old stuff and get to be focused on the present moment and open to the changes and new discoveries that you have yet to know about yourself. It becomes fun, an adventure and you continue to become more of yourself through each and every life experience, those you plan and those that show up unexpectedly.
It’s a weaving process. Weaving everything together self-care, self-discovery, self-expression, traveling, spending time on the beach, family and friends, and writing. And with that and the journey of experience of every moment always evolving, we become. We become who we are, who we have been and who we are meant to be
Writing leads you deep within to places hidden inside of you. Traveling opens you to possibilities and helps you discover things about yourself that you never knew possible. The beach itself is the doorway to present moment, the opening of possibilities, the inspiration and the connection of being.
Writing is my way of sharing my journey and what I have learned and discovered. I hope by sharing my life, my stories, help you to take a leap of faith, to trust your inner self, your intuition to live your life following your heart to create a lifestyle that reflects you deepest loves, passions, inspirations and values in every detail.
I hope through my writings, books and blogs, to inspire you to step fully into yourself and out into the world being true to yourself. encouraging you to step out into the world expressing your passions and loves fully and authentically,.
Aside from writing and traveling, I love the beach – any beach anywhere in the world, being on the ocean in a small boat, sailboat or cruise ship, wine and wine tasting, dark chocolate, pasta, tiramisu, dancing, dinners with friends, and visiting (and traveling) with my three daughters.
My homeport is on Topsail Island, North Carolina. I wake up and see the ocean out my window every morning. Our island is full of tourists all spring, summer and fall. In the winter the island is much quieter. From here I take off for my travels with my sister. Sometimes she visits me here on the island.
You will find more of my personal story in my Memoir
www.cathyteoste.com www.sisterstraveladventures.com
www.amazon.com/author/cathyteoste
Facebook: @authorcathyteoste @sisterstraveladvenrures @cruisingwithcathy
Twitter: @CTeoste Instagram @cathyteoste
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