Reclaiming and Reshaping a Voice

After years of neglect, I finally give my journal some attention. It had been mostly tossed aside in favor of this blog for quite a while, but over the last several months, whenever I sat down to blog, I just...couldn't. Everything I wanted to write felt too personal, too sacred, to share here. And so I returned to my journal. Pen and notebook. Writing privately, just for me, not for this little blog, I'd almost forgotten how good that felt. It was freeing.

If I'm being totally honest, I think I also stepped back from this blog out of fear. The internet is a different, far more intimidating place than it was when all this began. Back in 2008, I started a blog because my friends had one, and because it felt like I was writing to my friends. The blogging world felt small because it was fairly small, and that sense of intimacy, real or imagined, allowed for open, fearless, altogether imperfect writing.

Things, of course, have changed. With writing, all of it, on blogs, on sites, on social media, there's a level of scrutiny that didn't seem to exist before. Or, if it did, I was naive enough to ignore it. 

I'm grateful for the scrutiny. It keeps us honest, and it encourages thoughtful, diligent writing, both in journalism and in tiny corners of the web like this one. For me, though, that scrutiny comes with the sense that I need to be a bit more cautious. Careful with my language and my ideas. That's good for me, I know. It's a necessary and ultimately rewarding challenge, but it's also forced me to rethink my writing, and who I am. For better and for worse, I question myself more than ever before, and I'm doing my best to reclaim and reshape my voice.

More than once I've considered deleting this blog, or making it private, or erasing entire sections. It's not that I've ever written anything really wild or controversial, let's be real, this is basically a collection of sappy, melodramatic musings on the people I love and the places I come from. Still, I find myself feeling a bit embarrassed about some of what I wrote in my early 20s. The blogging landscape has changed so much that some of those earlier posts feel out of place and slightly unrecognizable. Isn't that how it always feels when you go back and read your old diary entries?

For now, anyway, I've decided that it should stay. That there's something sweet and sort of powerful about the raw, wide-eyed innocence and optimism of a young person saying whatever they want to say, even if it's cheesy or slightly self-centered or imperfect. Especially if it's imperfect.

We need those bold, unabashed voices more than ever now, don't you think?

On Being There

In primary school, my mom would put two packs of M&Ms into my lunchbox each day; one for me, and one to share with my friends. If you know my mom at all, that's the least surprising thing in the world. She's thoughtful and giving in a way that's so extreme, it seems like the exaggerated quality of a sitcom character. For years she kept an entire kitchen cabinet stocked with foods for any guests. A corner of the fridge, too.

It all started out well, the whole extra-pack-of-M&Ms situation. Day after day, I'd pass the 2nd pack around the table, each of my close friends grabbing a few. As weeks turned into months, though, that friend group grew a bit larger, and I still had just two packs of M&Ms. There weren't enough in that 2nd pack to go around, so one day, I decided to share my pack, too. 

It's obvious where this is going, right? Because eventually, of course, I was passing out both packs of M&Ms each day. They were my favorite little treat in the lunchbox, but at some point, I decided it wasn't worth hurting anyone's feelings. I just wanted everyone to feel included.

Things clearly could've been handled by, you know, not bringing M&Ms anymore. Or not passing them out at all. Or realizing that, duh, hello, nobody cared nearly as much as I thought they did. But I was 8, or maybe 9, and extra sensitive, and everything felt like a big deal.

I didn't tell my mom about it, because she probably would've started putting 3 packs in there and all hell would've broken loose. My brother was the one I turned to, and after I explained the situation, he looked at me with such a blank expression that I started to repeat myself.

"There's a solution."
"What is it?" I asked.
"Don't have as many friends."

Oh, to be a boy, right? I've mulled over and laughed about his quick reply several times over the years. That conversation took place more than 2 decades ago, but it still feels relevant. In 2nd grade you hand out candies, and at 20-something, it's phone calls, dinner dates, your time.

The thing is, it's incredibly hard to be there for all the ones you love in exactly the way you really want to be there. That's a conversation I seem to be having with so many people lately, all of us feeling stretched just a bit too thin. Sometimes you have to settle for sending a text instead of making a phone call, or mailing a gift instead of making the trip, and all the while you feel sort of terrible about it. In different phases of your life, there just isn't enough of you to go around, and unfortunately, that may be when you're needed the most.

People I love are marking milestones, and so am I, and I've come to realize that it can be hard to keep up. There just aren't enough M&Ms for everybody, you know? And that's okay! Even if it feels like it isn't. You just have to do your best and be honest with yourself, because it's impossible to be there, all out, for all the people you care about most. Especially when you don't quite have things figured out for yourself just yet.

This is a small reminder, for myself mostly, that by all means, you should be there whenever you can. Show up, show your love, and make it count. And when you can't? Skip the phone call and send the text. I'm sure it still means something. 

Celebrity

I wonder about celebrity. That feeling of popularity, sinking into loneliness. Where you're always surrounded, but loved for shallow reasons. All the voices of admiration and affirmation drown out into white noise and you rarely hear them anymore, they can't comfort you the way the voices think they might. Every word you say is scrutinized and pulled out of context in a way that rarely happens in ordinary life. And then it's publicized.

Recently, I've seen some celebrities getting upset at their level of celebrity and wanting to just desperately take a break and do something real, something that matters. I can't say that I blame them. There is so much work that can be done when you have a loud enough voice, that spending it on the fragility of celebrity, a lush lifestyle, when you could help others seems silly. But it's not so easy to pull away when it isn't always your choice, either. You sign contracts, you have management, you'are a brand. I don't know... I feel like that lifestyle is much harder than people outside of it give it credit for. Audiences expect these celebrities to serve them, rather than to create, and they aren't too keen on the service ending before they're ready.

Imagine being in that position? Maybe I'm the only one who feels that way, but at any rate, it's worth giving celebrities a break from that life. Not that anyone will listen to me. 

The Middle Ground

There are 84 blog posts sitting in my drafts folder. There's one about a difficult day 4 years ago, another about having, for the 1st time ever, just one New Year's resolution instead of a laundry list. There's a post about a strange, sunny day on the bay, a post about an adventure with my friends, a post about something Ifo said that stopped me in my tracks, surprising me in a way, a good way, that words haven't surprised me in years.

Sometimes this happens. I have so many things to say that I don't know where to start, and I end up saying nothing at all. Do you ever have that dream? The one where you're trying to talk to someone, and although you hear the words in your mind, muffled, as if you're underwater, you can't speak?

Hard to imagine that? Forget it then. So this is a few pieces of the drafts I've been saving for a long time. 

**********

It's been a good month. A really, really good month. The kind that's so good, you have to force yourself not to grow suspicious that something difficult must be around the corner. That feeling has been nagging at me, though, and there's nothing worse than that train of thought, the when-will-the-other-shoe-drop kind. It comes from a place of such fear and guilt, as if you have to pay for your happiness, as if joy will always be followed with some kind of inevitable sadness.

That's a defense mechanism, of course. When things feel like they're moving in the right direction, you can't help but brace yourself for whatever challenge will come up first.

**********

I hear my dad's voice in my head a lot. On a revision night after getting bad grades in mathematics and he bought me a lot of practice books to improve my maths, he'd say, "Do it correctly!" He sometimes sounds like yelling, the kind that intimidated coach but motivated me, pushed me to work harder and work smarter. He's the best teacher.

I hear my mom's voice in my head, too, a much softer one. With 6 kids, she's the kind of mom who always carries not just a first-aid kit for medical emergencies, but a first-aid kit for, well, life. From her purse, I've seen my mother pull out everything from Vicks to biscuits, just in case. She's a big just-in-case type, and before I ever did anything (go to school, take a test, leave for a night out), she'd repeat, "Be prepared."

Do it correctly. 

Be prepared.

 So much of parenting boils down to readying your kids for what's next, and helping them learn how to ready themselves. My parents instilled in me a borderline-ridiculous affinity for planning, and it's one of the passed-down habits I'm most grateful I adopted. There's something to be said for training yourself to anticipate what's coming, and to be prepared for your next move. 

But here's where I've sometimes mixed up their message: You're not always anticipating a blow, sometimes you're preparing for something great. You can't know that, of course, but you can learn to understand that good can follow good. There are ups and then there are downs, but sometimes there are ups, and then more ups, and then the down isn't so far to fall, after all.

**********

The words come quickly when things are really hard, and when things are really good. Maybe it's because the emotions feel more extreme, the thoughts more defined. It's the middle ground that's tough to sort through, I think. Even easy joy can be hard to navigate sometimes.

Grow a Thicker Skin

Something I've been thinking about lately is toughness. Being tough, being strong, being resilient, being scrappy, being brave, being stubborn, being unfazed and unrattled and unshakable and relentless. Being confident. All of these these things are synonyms in places, overlapping like a weird venn diagram of words and emotions and feelings. These are all good things to be and to have, and work as assets no matter who you are or what you do. Everyone's faced with criticism and critique, and everyone has to rise again from setbacks. That's how life works. It ebbs and flows.

But of all these tools in the spectrum of human emotion that help get you from valleys to peaks and back again, I don't want to have a thick skin. I don't want things to bounce off of me. I want to feel. Even if the feeling sucks. But the feeling's a reminder that I'm human. 

In some ways, thinking you're not human, that you're superhuman, and maybe even invincible, is helpful. It's the adrenaline that pushes you through something scary and challenging, and makes you think you're stronger than you are. Fire isn't as scary if you don't feel the flame. And whether you work or even just spend part of your life in a digital space, you learn pretty quickly to let things bounce off you. We're told to know better than to read the comments. People send nasty messages to complete strangers, either forgetting or ignoring the fact that there's another person and not just an anonymous computer screen on the other side of those words. It seems like the news is reporting on another atrocity every single day. Life would, in theory, be so much easier if you felt and reacted less.

But I don't think that's the way to go about it. Often, telling someone else to grow a thicker skin is to excuse the actions of everyone around them. "People are awful, don't let them get to you." But of course awfulness is going to get to a person. Of course it'll bug someone. That's human nature. You can't tell a person to not feel, just because it keeps the status quo intact.

And okay, sometimes people can be hypersensitive about some things, but they have the right to feel any which way they choose. You can't tell them that a feeling is wrong. And excusing the actions of other people, that oh, people are just overwhelmingly shitty, grow a thicker skin, move on, is to excuse that shittiness and let it keep happening. Sure, you can only control your own actions and not the actions of other people, but your actions can also include taking other people to task when their actions are bad. You don't have to ignore, and you don't have to roll over, and you don't have to simply accept things as they are. You don't have to grow a thicker skin. 

You can and should be resilient. You should stand your ground as much as you can, and especially when it's for things that are right. But don't grow a thicker skin. Don't teach yourself how to not feel. Let things affect you. Let things get under your skin and crawl up your veins and sit uncomfortably with you until you do something about them. Call people out when they say mean things to you. Stand up for yourself, and for anyone else you see being bullied or put down. 

We may mostly be grown ups, but we're still not so far from the playground. And sometimes on the playground, you'd skin your knee and it'd sting and you'd get gravel and grit in your scrape, and it'd hurt, but you'd remember that sting and you'd learn. Sometimes it's your own damn fault. But sometimes it wasn't. Just because somebody else pushed you over didn't make that sting hurt any less. And sometimes, those scrapes left scars. Sometimes, those moments of vulnerability lead to lessons and breakthroughs. Those moments of weakness often tell us who we really are.

Be strong and confident and believe in yourself and know when people say things, sometimes they say wrong things just to get to you. By all means, be stubborn and be smart about the fact that the internet is often dumb and people on the internet say dumb things and it's often smart to ignore these things. But having that wisdom is different than having a thick skin. Don't confuse the two, whatever you do. Don't grow a thick skin, or at least keep parts of it vulnerable. Feel. Be human. Be imperfect. Be alive.

What I'd Tell My 15-year-old Self

You're right: they will be your lifelong best friends.

Someday, you'll have more skinny jeans than flared.

Eat more vegetables.

Embrace your natural hair.

Just because he's older, doesn't mean he's cooler.

Don't worry, you'll travel, a few times, and you'll love it even more than you expect.

Wear sunglasses and sunscreen.

It's okay to be "the best friend." It's the better role, because you'll know him forever.

High-five for being a good girl. You'll be glad you were.

When someone offers to help, let them.

You don't need to have it all figured out. Cut yourself some slack.

Eventually, the Internet will take over the world.

Take more pictures. These memories will be some of your best.

Your crush will take you on a date in two years, but you'll be over it.

Those pathetic journal entries will be hilarious in 10 years.

Stand up for yourself and speak your mind. It's not rude, it's self-respect.

Learn to sew. Mom can't always be there.

Your insecurities are absurd. So are 99% of your fears. Let them go.

Go all-out with the melodramatics. This is their time to shine.

Never stop writing. The dream plays out.

Let your heart fill and then shatter. It can handle it. It will rebuild.

Treat everybody as if it's their last day on earth, because regret is stronger than gratitude.

Change your ambition. Be a teacher instead.

Yes, you do end up with a city boy. A charming one. He's everything.

And So I Write

I've missed blogging this past week. Though lately, my posts have become more and more sporadic, there's something freeing about sitting down and writing. I've always loved writing, ever since I was little, stringing words together to create something has excited me. And blogging gives me the arena to say what I need to say, gives me room to write what's on my heart. Writing is a passion and I'm grateful for the gift of this little online journal of mine.

There are many things I've been pondering lately. I'm in a new season of life and there are countless changes and choices coming up. Decisions and new paths that are necessary, yet hard. Because while change can be good, it's still tinged with melancholy. There's that sense of remembering what's gone and wishing for it, even though the future holds brighter promise than the past could have contained.

I'm working on several changes in my life right now; managing my time better. I lose time like leftover change, and unlike those bright pennies, time that's been wasted can't be found again. It's gone forever. And in my life, I've been coming the conclusion more and more that I need to work on how I spend my time. I long to be diligent, intentional, and authentic. Yet sometimes I view change as something that will just happen, and bam! There's a new me.

Change, however, is usually a gradual process; an incline that gets steeper along the journey and sometimes, you don't think that you'll ever reach the top. I'll always keep growing. But it's not a one time thing, not a spontaneous and instantaneous action that immediately transforms you. All that I can do is take my life as it is, a blessing, a day at a time and gradually grow into someone better. I choose to live intentional.

I fail, I flounder, fake, and fall down. We put ourselves into places from our sin that are far from Him. Yet He is always there, and no matter what, He is good. It's a choice to everyday live for Him. A life lived for Him isn't easy but it's the best kind of life there could be. I deeply desire to live a life that's meaningful, one that matters. A defined life is one that's lived for God. That's a life that I want to live. That's a life I'm going to live. There's no more "I'll do this tomorrow." Or putting it aside. I only have today and I won't let this gift of now fall by the wayside.

I have one life to live and I'm going to live it.

p.s: For those asking, yes, I'm currently working on a story. It's not finished yet. In the meantime, I'm planning to restart the short fictions on my blog. There are so many drafts at the moment and I'll publish them when the time comes. ^^

Blog Manifesto

I'm learning every day to allow the space between where I am and where I want to be to inspire me and not terrify me. - Tracee Ellis Ross

I was 17 when I started blogging, nearly 18. I was fresh out of school and unclear on how-to-live-my-life-and-live-it-well.

There's something really joyous about blogging then (oh do I sound old?). Blogs were sort of deliciously imperfect. And I needed that in my life. That joy, that delicious imperfection. Very quickly, blogging became a lens through which I could see the world: the details, the absurdity, both the loneliness and loveliness of everyday life. And it became a way to reach in the direction of the future at a time when my personal future felt very tenuous. I couldn't imagine life beyond 20, couldn't imagine getting better, or growing up, or anything after.

There's an Elizabeth Gilbert's quote I think of often:

Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing.

Some part of me knew that at 20, ill as I was, my life's changing. And If could recognize it as it's happening, bear witness to it, then I could transform the most heartbreaking moments of my life into the most meaningful. So the purpose of blogging, for me, was to document the in-between-ness of my life. To document this difficult, but important, events.

For the record, I realize I'm still in the in-between. But I feel a hell of a lot closer to one end than the other. I didn't know that I'd like writing so much, find so much meaning in it. Didn't know I'd fall so hard for words and their endless variations. I like blogging. But I don't know if I like what has become of it. Can I say that? I'm gonna say that. Let me explain. It seems to me that as blogging has evolved it's become far more commercial, but what this means is that more and more blogs look the same, feel the same; similar content, similar interface, and a sort of homogeneous cultural refrain: happiness as the ultimate end.

We're bombarded with images all day, every day, on television, the internet, in magazines, that make the desirable life seem just beyond reach. Images that make us want things we have no use for. It's a pretty simple formula actually: put something that has no immediate value to the consumer, next to something beautiful (the aesthetics of beauty having a higher value than almost anything else) and suddenly it becomes important, desirable.

The thing about blogs now is that they seem to be selling a way of life, one in which nothing bad happens. In which everyone's always cheery and smiling and dressed in impeccable and expensive clothes. This is nothing new of course, we as a culture and country seem to have cornered the market on happily-ever-after. But the thing about blogs is we think of them as non-fiction. And that's where it gets tricky. We mistake a very small, very edited slice of life as the whole of the thing. And few things are as they seem. Images flatten, words distort, and photo filters enhance.

I like fashion blog as much as the next person, I really do. The pictures are like candy, immediately satisfying. But here's what I wanna know: who can really afford to wear Jovian dress, carry a Chanel bag, and dress their arms in Tiffany & Co jewelry day after day? Certainly, I can't. And do I need to feel bad that I can't? It's that second question I worry about, because that's the question that sticks around longer than the immediate hit of pleasure. And that's the question that, if I'm not paying attention, sort of chips away at my self-worth.

Perhaps other people don't have the same experience. But what if they do?

I understand that depicting total realism is impossible and not the point of blogging. I've heard time and time again bloggers explain that their corner of the internet is their space and therefore they have the right to choose what they share. But we don't live in a vacuum. And shared content goes into the world and has an effect. Free speech is sort of a misnomer, isn't it? Because it's free to a point. There's always a cost..we just don't always know what that cost is.

Of course I believe in personal responsibility and accountability, that we can't entirely control how what we say is received. "Perception is reality" is one of those principles that drives me nuts because it's such a lazy way of thinking..so unimaginative. And let's be honest, you can't reason with crazy. And if a crazy person perceives you as crazy, does that make you crazy? But the thing is, much evidence exists to prove that the onslaught of doctored images in favor of "flawless" bodies is extremely damaging. So what about "flawless" lives?

I took this blogging break to work on other things, but also to give myself some time to figure out if I wanted to continue. And the thing is, I do. Because I actually quite love it. But for the last few years I've attempted to reconcile what I love about blogging with what has come to be expected from the medium. And I'm not sure I can. Or that I need to. But what I did feel like I needed to do was create a governing set of principles to remind me of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

 A Blog Manifesto

1. This is a writing blog. Not a lifestyle blog.

2. I do this because I love it and it has meaning for me but if I stop loving it, I will stop doing it.

3. I'll occasionally be abstract and private, but I'll do my very best to never paint my life as something it's not.

4. This space is a part of my life, but only a part. If it ever gets in the way of living, then enough.

5. My purpose here is to document what has happened (and occasionally dream of what might be). I believe the moment I do something specifically for the purpose of blogging about it, it cheapens the experience and undermines the content.

6. I have no interest in distilling my life into a three-sentence-bio.

 7. I believe in women. I believe in women who speak up for themselves and ask for what they want and demand more out of life. I believe in a woman's brand of intelligence and wit and grace. I think we need more of it in the world. I want to see more women in leadership positions, more women who aren't afraid to ruffle a few feathers. And I believe because we live in a world that is tremendously connected, the bonus is on each and every one of us to encourage the full realm of a woman's potential.

8. I'd love to say that I'll blog every day. But it's just not possible. There's only one of me and I can't generate that much worthy content. So I'll blog when I can.

9. I'm not interested in more content for the sake of more content (or more clicks).

10. If you're uninterested, move on, I'm not counting numbers.

11. And if you come here and then head elsewhere with the sole intent of gossiping amongst internet strangers...well, I just don't get that. And for the people who run and moderate those blogs, I'd like to ask what value you think you're adding to the larger world?

12. Maybe that's the question I want everyone to ask: what value are we adding?

13. I've met more than a few internet mavens whose lives seem far cooler and more vibrant online than they do in person. They have secured a niche and figured out what works for them and that's great. But my goal is, and will always be, that if someone were to meet me offline they'd think me just as they imagined. I'll very often fail at this, but it's nonetheless my intent.

14. I write the best version of myself, always. But I do believe that's a very different thing than writing a different and better version of myself.

That's what I got. And hopefully it's still a little deliciously imperfect.

Too long? Sorry.

On Love and Looking In

Recently I was talking to a friend about relationships, about the ones that work, the ones that don't, the ones that would have worked or could have worked, and the ones that probably, definitely never should have worked. Eventually, inevitably, the conversation turned to ourselves.

I love talking about relationships. All kinds, really. But I especially love to hear what people have to say about themselves in relationships. It's interesting, isn't it, to think about who you are to someone? To think about the best, worst, and strangest parts of you, all tangled up in love and sometimes loss and sometimes everything all at once? To think about what it's like to love you?

In my younger age I went through a handful of dark and heavy things that forced me to look inward. To look at myself and my place in the world, at why I was who I was and what that meant and where that would take me. I learned to reflect and look inward very early on, too early, maybe..and that, coupled with my writing habits of stepping outside a moment, make me self-aware.

And it must be interesting, so to speak, for better or for worse, to be in a relationship with someone so drenched in that sort of awareness. I think about how odd and tiring it must feel to be in a relationship with someone so aware of moments, someone who steps in and out of them and back in again, all the while internally narrating the ifs and the buts and the maybes. And then I think: seriously, Aemy, stop thinking so much.

Once, in college, a girlfriend joked that our friendship would steer her straight into therapy. She said that my self-awareness is rubbing off. I cracked up, knowing all too well what she meant. We eventually became roommates, and no, she didn't end up in therapy. But there were a lot of late-night talks. And snacks and movies.

Still, that stuck with me, the idea that my self-awareness was something other people were aware of, and that my tendency to reflect might somehow wedge its way into my relationships one way or the other. For better or for worse. I found myself thinking about those faded friendships and relationships with a new sense of clarity, a genuine empathy, realizing what a real turn-off that might be for someone who'd rather not look back or inward. Because not everyone wants to doubt and change and shift and evolve all the time. And that's okay.

I talked to Ifo about what that friend said back in college and he agreed, saying my sense of self is a tangible part of me. I felt a bit embarrassed, then, at 1st, a bit ashamed of that curious, sensitive piece of me. But then I thought about what it all meant, because if it's true, if that piece of me somehow really does rub off, then how lucky I am to be there when that self-awareness strikes, when those walls come down. How lucky I am to grow into relationships with people who look in at themselves, and at me, and who hold both of us accountable for being our best and truest and most sincere selves. For better or for worse.

You Listen and Let Go

Sometimes you know and bury that knowing underneath petitions like, I should do this, or this is expected of me, or people will be disappointed...and that process is called forgetting. Trying on faces and wanting them to fit..but they don't and this is called confusion. 

By this time, you've forgotten what it is and wonder what's going on and why's this not what you thought. Small things trigger small thoughts that remind you of that thing, the knowing. Seeing an image in a perfect swell of music. The stars. Driving past yellow lights in the black of night. A moment that triggers a dream you had, but before you can stuff it away, you grab the ends of it by the hands and say, wait. And, what's that?

This part of yours that knows is like an old friend that you lost touch with. Only now, you're remembering how things used to be and how you wanted them to be and how they aren't that way now, so you suck it up. You call her up. You apologize. You say, "tea?" with a sad laugh. And when you get together, it's awkward, hesitant, neither of you look like you remember. 

You're meeting a piece of yourself that you pushed away for years and coming to terms with who you are. You're looking yourself in the face and saying, I don't know you. But you sit there. You drink your tea. You have another cup, force yourself to be still. But most importantly, you listen. You don't interject what you thought, what you think. You listen and not say a word, and when she's done talking, you're weeping. Shaking from apologizing. 

Calm down. Now what? And she's saying, well, you know now, you remember. So, go do, kiddo. And you're laughing, what, it can't be that easy? But she's got a smile borne out of waiting and shakes her head slow, sipping the rest of her tea. It's not that easy, but it's that simple. You know. Her smiles slips and she's serious now. To not go after it now is to say your desires don't matter. That your authentic center isn't worth it. That your deepest beliefs and truest hopes and realest loves can't measure up. That your story, message, song isn't enough. Don't do that.

Now you're at the door and you can choose to part ways, say let's talk again soon. Or, you can listen. And you can let go of what you thought, of all the shoulds and coulds and woulds. And you can be brave enough to start over and live out what makes you come alive. You know, a part of you knows, that the same part in your heart that stings listening to this music or cries from that film or feels lopsided and soft in your hands is the same part that knows what you're supposed to be doing, what you want to be doing, what's your thing. Maybe it's like finding out that you knew where home was the entire time, that it wasn't where you thought or what you dreamed, but upon discovering it, walking into it, you realize it's better than what you thought you wanted.

We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.- Joseph Campbell

And So, You Get Up

Sometimes, life's heavy.

You don't notice it at 1st. It's like collecting stones. You start slowly, gently. At 1st, you can't feel the weight. Then it becomes harder to notice what's in front of you. You can't see the scope, the slope of the landscape, because you're focused on carrying the foundation. It's easier to shoulder it all and numb yourself to the weight.

But there's that place. That point where you read your threshold, your valley. Maybe you've walked for so long that you're bone weary and ringed with grief. Or perhaps you ran, the entire way, and your breath's knocked out of you. And you realize you don't know where you are, how you arrived. You look back and see that you've missed the markers, missed the milestones, missed the moments. Too busy holding onto the heaviness of the journey. It's been like that for so long that you're afraid you won't know who you are without it.

You have to let it go. To not go apathetic. To not go numb. To not go quiet. Don't let sorrow swallow your song. You need to be awake to the world, to life, to yourself. It feels like running for the 1st time, like stretching your shuddering muscles, like walking in the cold dew of morning. It stings. You start in the dark, with only the promise of sun. There's no light to outline the path. It doesn't matter. You've forgotten the road anyways. You've walked so long without one that trails are unfamiliar and foreign.

There's no hiding from brokenness. There's no running from grief. Some manage to evade it for longer, others find it knocking on their door daily. It has a face you cannot forget, leaves its calling card everywhere it goes. We're each stitched with ribbons of our every heartache, except, some of us are frayed. Even the best of us have tears.

Sometimes it feels easier, better, to go cold. To give into the pain and become numb, and once again, pick up the skeleton of who you were before grief marked your face. To let your heart harden. Lock it away and melt the key and live in the motions, never the moment. At the very point of pain, it seems less exhausting. But passivity's a silent slow killer, a lie that laps away at the texture of life like water on the stone.

And so, you get up. You keep moving though your bones ache. You walk until you run. You hum until you can sing. You catalogue small things until you can once again take in the scope. You choose to be awake. It's surprisingly painful. It's sobering to look around and realize you have forgotten what it means to be alive, for so long. It's October and you're barefoot and the ground has still not thawed.

Breathe. Again and again. Dive into the core and pressure point of your pain, the heart of your ache. It's red hot and white and bitter black. It shakes like starlight. You swallow it like stones. But you emerge and understand, it hasn't added a layer to your heart, but a ring. It's not a mark, but a message.

The thing about being awake is you notice things; good, bad, beautiful, painful, sorrow, sweet, bitter, broken, dizzying between everything. You cry more. You laugh deeper. You understand broken things and encourage flowers to just be. You find your soul sprouting little green things, that the roots of the marrow of being haven't left after all. And it's painful, the fire of wakening running like blood. You've been asleep for so long feeling's foreign.

But you begin to appreciate what's small. You begin to breathe gratitude. You stumble on meaning, find grace woven alongside ache. It's not easy, it's not quick. It's gradual, a journey. This time, instead of collecting stones, you're collecting colors of the sky. You jot down thanks and let them go wild in the plum breath of the evening. The smear of jam on toast, black coffee in the morning, a walk in the evening that lingers.

Look at the trees, how they burn. Look at the fields, how they deepen. Look at the world, how it cries. It's a choice to go deep and live through your pain, to feel it all, to choose to be awake to what comes. Bravely, when the time beckons, to let it go. Knowing that the struggle and searching builds strength, story, a song. Only, you'are alive and present and find the words to sing inside you, and they were, all along.

Strength

For years I believed that strong meant holding on and pushing through. Whether I was at home, in the classroom, or part of a conversation, I did just that. If resistance came, I held on. I pushed through.

In the past few years, though, I've gained a bit of clarity. Circumstances and relationships have taught me that strength doesn't come from sticking it out. Strength comes from the willingness to act or let go, and the wisdom to know which route to choose.

What does strong mean to you?

Hey Monday

It's gonna be Monday. And it could mean 2 things: a bad ending to a good weekend or a bad start to another week.

If you're like me at all, maybe you'd snooze the alarm 6 times before jumping out of bed in hurry because you're dangerously close to being late to work. Maybe you'd run around the kitchen trying to find an instant breakfast while filling water bottle. Maybe Monday means a heavy sigh for all of the things you didn't get accomplished over the weekend, or a countdown of hours left until Tuesday. Maybe you give up on the day before it even starts. or you wish it were a different day.

And it can be, you know. You'd want your Mondays to be more than a complaint, more than a collection of all the things that can go wrong in 24 hours. Days are all about perspective. This Monday is an opportunity to start being grateful for the days you're given, regardless of how they turn out. 

Tomorrow's a brand new day. A thank you that you woke up. A smile because you slept on a comfortable bed. A grateful heart that you have a job. A deep breath of fresh air.  A celebration of another chance to do it better. An opportunity to try harder in all of your endeavors. A privilege that you have a cell phone, home, food, health, clean clothes, education, etc. 

Start off your week by making a decision to make the most out of what comes your way. Decide to let go of those things that aren't good for your soul. Wake up and put a smile on your face. Stop waiting for the perfect moment and start doing it now. Send someone a thoughtful text to start their day off right. Turn down every opportunity of anger and frustration. Do something now so that you don't have to do it later. Express gratitude and notice the beauty. Be kind to yourself. Embrace the day.

Mondays are beginnings and the best part about beginnings is that you get to write the story. Let's not hate on Monday. Have a great week ahead. :)