The Girl Who Cried Woogie

When I began my life anew at the ripe old age of 32, I discovered that survival no longer needed to be my reason for living. There was so much more! Exciting, new, wonderful, awesome stuff! I was like a little kid, marveling at the appearance of spring and wondering how I had never noticed the new sprouts, how the light changed with the seasons. I began to sing and dance, and say and do fun things, for the first time in my life. I made up a word. I swear I had never heard this word before I made it up. This word became my catch all word. It expressed all the excitement and energy and newness and hope and joy of my new life. WOOGIE! Became my cry. I would do woogie dances, I would gleefully shout woogie out as congratulations to friends. I would say woogie with a nudge when I wanted the driver of the vehicle I was in to turn here. Soon, woogie became my nickname. I don't know if I cried woogie or not, but I can tell you that it is almost impossible to say the word without smiling. Try it. This book is part autobiography and part self help and part how to. It has been a long time coming. I wrote the book, and even had it edited, and then I told myself I was going to wait till my dad died to publish. He died in July of 2019. Here is it, July of 2020, and I just signed the agreement to publish the book, today, on July 16. I still woogie. People still call me woogie. But I live Fearlessly Feral now, which is the name of the podast I've created as a result of having to cry woogie in the first place. So this book is both an accounting of why I felt I had to cry woogie in the first place, and the resulting living fearlessly feral because of it. I'll be honest here: I never would have published an autobiography. I'm not famous. Infamous maybe. But not famous. However, without exception, everyone who has heard even a part of my story has told me I needed to publish an autobiography. And still, some part of me doesn't feel right just telling the story, which is a bit of a problem, without also narrating the solution. I was taught never to come to the table with my story without also being prepared to present a solution. That advice has served me well, so in this book, I've presented a series of problem, and a series of solutions. I hope the solutions work for you. Please don't get stuck in the problems. Three things are very obvious to me here. Maybe they are to you as well. One is that I have trouble titling things. I finally decided on The Girl Who Cried Woogie after considering a bunch of other titles. And, I freely admit, I'm just as prone to procrastination as the next person, for a variety of reasons. The other obvious thing, at least to me, is that I live in a certain way. Wild. Free. Somewhat undomesticated. It took a while to get here. What, precisely, does wild and free mean? What does fearlessly feral mean? Let's take fearless first. I believe that fear and faith cannot live in the same entity at the same time. And yes, I am aware that there are people who disagree with me. That is their right. Their argument usually runs along the line of it being a wise thing that they are afraid to touch a hot stove. That isn't the kind of fear I am speaking of here. I'm speaking of the kind of fear that is the foundation of how we live. The kind of fear that makes us shut down, lock things up tight both figuratively and literally, build walls, both figuratively and literally. The kind of fear that justifies attacking others who look or live differently than we do. The kind of fear that justifies us arguing for our limitations. The kind of fear that results in beliefs such as: 1. If something can go wrong it will 2. No good deed goes unpunished 3. Situation Normal All Fucked Up, otherwise known as SNAFU If you suffer from any of these beliefs, it is my hope that this book will allow you to to change some of those beliefs. Fearless, for me, means living life full out, full on. It means that my actions stem from a foundation of love, not fear. It does not mean I'm not afraid. I'm just as afraid of a hot stove, rattlesnakes and black widows as the next person. I just don't let those kinds of fears run my life. Feral? It simply means I consider myself to be undomesticated. I consider domestication as showing up in life in ways that really aren't who and what we really are, just to live up to some societal version of what we should be. It's akin to wearing baggy pants when tight pants are in style. Or wearing white shoes in winter. Only it goes so much deeper than that. For me, it means I knew from the get go that a Monday through Friday 9-5 job would kill me. It means I knew from the get go that earning a living based solely on how much money it would bring me would kill me. So I never got that 9-5 job. Well, I did once, for a few months after I got sober. It nearly killed me. So for me, feral means I know my truth and I walk it. No matter what society says. I'm living Fearlessly Feral and it is my intention that after you read this book, maybe you can too.