#THROWBACKTURKEY

I was standing in my kitchen crying over my gratitude, so I figured I should takes notes on what feel

s so amazing right now.

I'm grateful. Moved emotionally by the flooding of knowing that I am right where I should be in life, in love, in the pursuit of happiness. I've felt this way before, but I know why I feel it today. I'm allowed. It's Thanksgiving. I got to sleep in. I woke up to the smell of turkey, love from my boys and text from clients and friends.

In a few hours Todd and I will gather our entire crew, as much of my family as I can squeeze into my house. And I am going to cook (the only time I do all year) and make that one thing I know how to cook that won't show up again for 12months.

And I feel satiated. I feel like the turkey has already been eaten and we're all comfortable and laughing.

But that is just generally how I feel these days.

This year, I know where it came from. I know how this has happened. I know full well where the satisfaction comes from. And I have to give credit where it is due.

But first....

There was a time when I wasn't sure if I'd ever find this thing that would make me very happy. I've been this fulfilled before. But I also haven't. I have also looked at my happiness and wondered if it had a time limit. I guess, in some way, knowing that it does, knowing that I have this life to live and then it will never been this way (the way it is here on earth) again. It will change. I've wondered if I would feel this passion for life forever. When you're on the brink, but you question what the hell is next. I've been caught wondering who I should be and what I shoud do and how I would ever find love. That person, in that moment was half page news in college...

pictured above.

I ended a lifelong string of self-identities wrapped up in being a student. I was graduating, I was saying goodbye and I didn't know how to become who I wanted to "grow up to be one day."

All I could think was:

"I hope I can be as passionate about my future as I have been able to be as a student. What if I don't find that?"

The 10 years between that moment and now were the answer to that question. A string of ups and downs, the search in every way to find "her." To find the person who was all I wanted, to fit the way school seemed to fit.

I tried a few paths.

They all led me here.

Looking exactly the same as I did that day in the school paper, but on the "other side." and feeling so fucking relieved that it happened.

So I appreciate what I have here, in this living space with my fellow humans, experiencing this amazing dimension we call "life."

And that "thing" wasn't one thing at all. It was what led me here.

Being an entrepreneuer is my happily ever after.

It already is. Knowing that sooner, may have been helpful in some ways, but there was no other way when I'm really honest with myself...

This year has been such an emotional rollercoaster for the Crowd Siren. There have been amazing opportunities we have been given and there are some very harsh realities we learned. At the end of the day, the Crowd Siren was stronger than the student Lauralie ever knew. The team is so rock solid now, I don't even know how we attracted these amazing people. I know I'm blessed.

When I cry now, there's so much more happy then I knew was possible. If you told that girl that she'd be co-parenting a 10yr old and growing a business or two, loving a handsome man, making clients into friends or growing family, she would have run away from it instead of running to it.

This Thanksgiving is truly made possible by the people I am surrounded with and the work I'm able to do.

I feel like fucking Cinderella.

Thanks for all those friends and contacts who have decided to love me, Jewfro and all. And for letting me cry. Publicly. Maybe often...

xoxo

LLE