We're Strangers Once More

I was sitting in a Starbucks in the hazy middle of daybreak. It's barely light out, despite the clock hitting 10 am. The rain's dripping, falling slowly and softly on the windows flushed green from the gray sky. Outside, trees were blowing. In just seconds, it went from a pale gray to charcoal horizons. It's dark indoors, the outside spreading a smudginess into the flickering light of Starbucks. Cars zipped by quickly, skipping the drive through, skipping the place, and slip through the rain.

People come in, wet and tousled from the deluge, laugh, say they're escaping from the storm. Instantly, strangers become friends for minutes, united over terrible weather, worried about the storm that's passing, gathering around each others phones to glance at radars, bemoan over the clouds of blackness coming in. I've got a caramel Macchiato, and then they're gone. The tables outside echo with the slap, every second more droplets tap out their pattern, the sound dulled by heavy glass windows and the faint hum of electricity. The water outside is soupy, splashing in puddles up to the middle of car tires as they rush through. It's so deep outside that waves are made and they crash on the cement. It's strange, unsettling, to see cars that size swallowed up in water that was just minutes ago suspended in air. Every so often, lightning opens up the dimness of the sky and reminds us that the power could disappear in an instant.

People come and go, regulars filter through those looking for a decent cup of coffee, and people see each other for the 1st time. These bonds created over a strangers phone, from people trapped inside because of the weather, who only know each other based on their daily cup of coffee, surface. A group of people, finding solace together. It's a rainstorm that brings us together, and yet, the sun persists in coming forward, pulling apart what's being built. And so we go about our days, waiting for these collective glimpses of humanity, reading between the lines and usual orders to see something a bit more, a yearning for relationships above else.

The rain pounds but the sky clears. A bird flies across the murky clouds, an ink stain in the weather, and the cars roll by unknowingly on the freeway, forever apart, forever mysteries. Thunder rumbles, the rain abates, hardens, rolls on surfaces and fills the pooling tables and streets, and yet, we're strangers once more.

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You are a good person. And I'm in awe of this immediately. It makes me nervous. How kind you are, and how honest. How pure-of-heart, as they say. There's no white horse, no dazzling suit of armor, just your soft voice and quiet footsteps. Your kind eyes and slow, deliberate smile. I spent those first few months just watching you, wondering what to make of you. Suspended in a thick, buoyant tangle of my own bewilderment.

Missing You

They talk about missing people as if it's something they only feel, like the scratching and melting of pulling on old sweater. But it's less like only feeling and more like living with an ache that becomes as much a part of you as your fingers or how your eyes disappear when you laugh or the freckles that find your face on a sunny day.

With features, you can pinpoint each one, and so it is with missing. Wednesday morning and I'm missing you, Thursday afternoon and I'm missing you, Friday all day and I'm still missing you. You carry the culmination of the moments, in small and simple ways, and in the end it didn't matter if they were good or bad, just that they were and for once, that was enough.

Characterized by when: when he made jokes and you laughed, when your favorite smell of was lavender and grass, when you listened to the same album hundred times and swore you'd never get tired of it. Marked by how: you picked seashells while the sun set, he drove to a sleepy town with you and listen to Coldplay, you wore his sweatshirt smelling like rain. And more often than not, it's by what it's missing: your favorite sushi, voice at the end of the line, someone to understand your movie references, a way to say I love you without any words.

I'm missing you so badly.

Life Goals

Travel the world. Travel some more. Write a story. Fall in love. Stay in love. Get married. Travel with my love. Write a story of us. Sing. Learn a new language. Gain a few pounds from eating through traveling. Spend a week in Italy. Have a baby. Have another baby. Have lots of babies. Maybe just a few. Travel with my babies. Kiss my husband. Write another story. Have a library. Buy a Mini Cooper. Go to Mecca. Be honest. Live in another country. Make pancakes on Saturdays. Make pie on Sundays. Buy a house by the water. Sell extra things. Open up our home. Plant a garden. Learn to play piano well. Travel. Go wedding dress shopping with my daughters. Go to little league games. Live out of my gut. Write my grandparent's stories. Get good at yoga. Move cross country. Start over. Stay. Meet the girls my sons love. Photograph what I see. Watch my husband become a grandfather. Spend my anniversary in Paris. Drink tea with people I love. Explore. Live with less. Get a rabbit. Make lots of pastry. Stop being afraid. Cook through Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Wear skirts more. Start a traveling library. Ditch the TV. Start traditions. Keep traditions. Make cinnamon rolls and egg bake for family brunch. Say I'm sorry, I love you, I need you, I like you, I miss you. Understand they're sometimes the same.

A Routine

There's really nothing better than waking up early, taking a walk around the area, then sitting on the porch swing, coffee in hand, watching my cats stir and awaken. The air is still, the sun bright and warm without being too hot, and my mind clears. Opens itself to the day.

When people ask whether I have any writing rituals, whether I have to do anything special before sitting down to write, well, this is probably the closest thing I have to a routine.

Because the real secret? Well, it's just to sit down and actually write. Don't feel bad if nothing comes to you right away, that's not the point. The point is that you're giving yourself the time and the space to do something you love. And that right there is enough to feel good about, don't you think?

Let our Scars Fall in Love

We're all seeking that special person who's right for us. 

But if you've been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there's no right person, just different flavors of wrong. 

Why's this? 

Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way.

But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. 

And it isn't until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems, the ones that make you truly who you are, that we're ready to find a lifelong mate. 

Only then do you finally know what you're looking for. 

You're looking for the wrong person.

But not just any wrong person: the right wrong person, someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, "this is the problem I want to have."

I'll find that special person who's wrong for me in just the right way.

Let our scars fall in love.

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.

I Value Class

I've been thinking about class; class in the sense of courtesy, virtue. Class as a noun, a quality to be possessed. Class is what I treasure most in a person. I don't necessarily mean "class" in some sort of elite sense, either. This isn't to say that I value manners and etiquette and sophistication above all. What I mean to say is that I value decency. Graciousness. Grace.

I value the sorts of people who are kind when no one's watching, who are honest about their own faults, who speak up for themselves when it's appropriate while maintaining respect for the person they're speaking to. I value people who are loyal and true, who selflessly build up other's successes and then easily, humbly, accept praise in return. People who are compassionate and considerate, people who remember to call on birthdays and random days, too, just because you're on their mind.

I value people with genuine civility, the ones who help the old lady at the grocery store and strike up a conversation with the cashier. The ones who see people as people. Who befriend their neighbor, their postman, their plumber, their best friend's sister's boyfriend's aunt. I value people who appreciate handwritten letters and phone calls, people who realize that some occasions call for something more than a text, something more than an email. Who send a song or a book or a cut-out article to somebody they care about because they just know that they'll appreciate it. I value people who can admit their mistakes and learn from them. People with the heart to forgive, with the guts to hold on, with the empathy to understand another person, or the willingness, even, to try.

Like I said: I value class. And I'm not perfect. No, far from it. I'm not always the person I wanna be; a person with tact and dignity and class. Sometimes I fail. But I can try, I can do my best. And I can hold the world to a higher standard, because I do think we have it in us. Don't you?

This is How You Lose Her

Here's to all the guys, dudes and gentlemen out there..

This is how you lose her.

You lose her when you forget to remember the little things that mean the world to her: the sincerity in a stranger's voice during a trip to the grocery, the delight of finding something lost or forgotten like a sticker from when she was 5, the selflessness of a child giving a part of his meal to another, the scent of new books in the store, the surprise short but honest notes she tucks in her journal and others you could only see if you look closely.

You must remember when she forgets.

You lose her when you don't notice that she notices everything about you: your use of the proper punctuation that tells her continuation rather than finality, your silence when you're about to ask a question but you think anything you're about to say to her would be silly, your mindless humming when it's too quiet, your handwriting when you sign your name in blank sheets of paper, your muted laughter when you're trying to be polite, and more and more of what you are, which you don't even know about yourself, because she pays attention.

She remembers when you forget.

You lose her for every second you make her feel less and less of the beauty that she is. When you make her feel that she's replaceable. She wants to feel cherished. When you make her feel that you're fleeting. She wants you to stay. When you make her feel inadequate. She wants to know that she's enough and she doesn't need to change for you, nor for anyone else because she's she and she's beautiful, kind and good.

You must learn her.

You must know the reason why she's silent. You must trace her weakest spots. You must write to her. You must remind her that you're there. You must know how long it takes for her to give up. You must be there to hold her when she's about to. You must love her because many have tried and failed. And she wants to know that she's worthy to be loved, that she's worthy to be kept.

And, this is how you keep her.

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. :)

Bits of Wisdom

SPF 4 doesn't count. In fact, it probably contains more oil than sun protection.

It's worth keeping every movie ticket you've ever had, you'll want them someday.

It really, truly is okay to say no. Saying yes isn't always an option.

Parents are right almost all the time, so you may as well listen and learn.

Giving 100% to work or school is great, but you should give the same to friends.

You have to open up and seek out the joy, joy doesn't find you.

If he wants to be with you "in a couple years", move on. Love shouldn't have to be planned.

Friends will move away, you'll move away, and somehow, you'll be closer than ever.

The best kind of love is when you both put the other on a pedestal.

Have a great weekend. :)

Letting it All In

Previously a friend asked about love, heartbreak and moving on, about the hows and the whys. I've been thinking a lot about how to respond, remembering that desperate grip of hope that rises in the wake of a loss. Remembering the need for black-and-white clarity. Really, all of us just want someone to name that thing, that one thing we're feeling, because once we've named the unnameable, it somehow feels easier to erase; if only because we finally know what exactly we're trying to move past.

"How do you get over the feelings? How do you move on?" She asked.

There's no one answer, of course, and although she'd been talking about romantic love, I think we can all relate to that need to escape feelings. It's not always easy and I can't always manage, but if I'm angry or upset or lonely or jealous or afraid, I try to step back and say, "so be it." So be it. It's okay to feel sad and it's okay to feel nostalgic and it's okay to sink into those murky, melancholy feelings every once in a while. That's life. That's living. What matters, where your character lies, is in the action. The greatest marker of who you are is what you do with how you feel, what happens in those moments between sense and do.

When it comes to the most powerful, deep-rooted sorts of hurt, loss and heartbreak, I suppose I've never really set those feelings aside. They still scratch at my insides some days, when a moment or some strange emotion catches me by surprise. I've always felt like all those slivers of heartbreak still live somewhere inside me and on any given day, it's just a matter of where they lie. Most days I don't notice them. But some days, they sit in my stomach, making me nauseous. Other days, it's a quick poke that swiftly passes. And on the worst days, I feel those thick, heavy feelings of heartbreak filling up my throat until they make a lump so big I can hardly breathe. Sorry if that's exaggerated. 

"I can't even sleep, I'm drowning," she said.

I understood. Whenever I've experience pain, I wallow. I dive headfirst into mourning, basking in the most surreal kind of sadness. Long, dramatic crying spells, hours spent feeling everything at once, hours feeling nothing. The point is, I let all those feelings wash over me, drowning for just a little while until I'm literally exhausted by them, until I can't stand to sit still for another moment and all I wanna do is do something about it.

Eventually, that human impulse to fix will kick in. Eventually, you'll hit the surface. In the meantime, feel. Whatever it is, just let it in. Feel, and then do. And do something that makes you feel proud. Let your actions reflect your best self, and don't worry about the rest.

A Beginning

I've always been afraid of endings. I dodge them, avoid them, find any excuse to hold on to what comes before the end. It's a habit of sorts, and I'll do just about anything to put the pieces of my life on a forever timeline. My fear feels most obvious, most tangible, in the way that I read books. I dive into a narrative headfirst, moving through the pages as quickly as I can, engrossed, only to stop at the final chapter and wait days, weeks even, until I read those final pages. I cling to the hope that's found in "what if?".

Much of my life has felt permanent. My family has stayed together since I was born, my friends has been the same since high school, etc. So much of what I know is linked, the different corners of my life connected because I've made a conscious effort to connect them. My past and my present feel blurred together, and there's comfort, I think, in those ties, in the way that they erase time, making then and now and later feel not so far apart.

In the past, rather than letting a friendship or a relationship or a phase of my life come to an end, I'd force it to shift shape and evolve into something different, more manageable, never quite willing to let it go, even when that may have been easier. And I wonder, sometimes, where that comes from, why goodbye can feel so drenched in dread. I'm grateful to love someone who embraces black-and-white endings, the finality of knowing what is and what isn't. Ifo seems fearless and sure in that way. But me, I've found that I'm most comfortable lingering in the gray area, the murky space where hope seems to live.

All this is to say that I've been wrong. Because most things in life don't belong in the world of forever, and that's a good thing. Endings, for what it's worth, can actually be quite freeing, because endings are opportunities, springboards toward something new. And so maybe, all this time, what I've really feared wasn't reaching the end, but deciding what's next: a beginning.

Cheating on Your Loneliness

This type of loneliness may always be in you, even if you're with someone. But you could cheat on your loneliness.

Think about how much your mother loves you.

Think about how much your father loves you.

Think about how many fires your sisters/brothers would walk through to protect your heart from being broken one more time.

Think about all the late night calls your best friends have taken and listened to you, no matter how trite.

Think about the ideas in your head.

Think about the people who have read some things you've written about and told you it made them feel a little less alone and less afraid.

Think about the people who have seen something special in you.

Think about the adventures you've had, the strangers who carried you through a tough moment on a leap of faith.

Think about the time you laughed so hard tears came out your eyes.

Think about what it feels like when you see a movie or a play or a work of art and for a minute, everything is suspended in that moment of transcendent and elusive beauty.

Think about all the stories you have.

Think about all of the stories you've yet to tell.

These things will never leave you. The space of what or who has left you only makes room for what needs to come. Thank them. And you don't have to feel lonely after all. 

Time Won't Wait

It's kind of dichotomous, you know? Celebrating life and mourning death. The excitement of being together with family and friends contrasted with sadness for the circumstances that brought us there. It's been 50 days since my grandmother passed away, but the funeral day's still fresh in my mind. Although we were gathered because of her death, I realized that we're actually all there because of her life.

When's the last time you told your family/friends/lovers that you love them? Death taught me to say it now. And to say it the way you mean it with every ounce of love. It showed me how to be appreciative of someone else's time. To express a grateful heart before the moment escapes me. To stay curious. 

The thing about death is that it makes you think about how you're living, the legacy people have created with all that they leave behind, how you've spent time. And I wonder about how many times I've let an opportunity passed by to tell someone how much they mean to me while they're there, right there. I also think back how many phone calls I didn't make or pick up, the questions I didn't ask and the stories I never heard. And how many chances I've blown that one day I hope to get back. But the thing about time is that you can't go back. Just forward.  

Here's to no longer keeping things off for tomorrow. Because all we really have is today.

Do it now. Say it now. Be it now.

We are Stories still Going

There are parts of stories that we wish were different, things we wish we could change, erase, forget. We get stuck in moments. Memories turn to ghosts. We try to live in the past, but it never works. And then somehow, inside the same story, there's good. There are memories that make us laugh and make us smile, relationships and conversations, dreams of jobs and families, and places that we hope to go. Even things as simple as favorite books and songs and films, the way they remind us we're alive, these things are part of our story as well. And we've come to believe that all of it matters, that all of it is significant and the opposite of small. We've come to believe that you deserve to be around people who know these parts of you, people who laugh and mourn and celebrate with you, people who remind you that you're not alone.

If you should ever get to a place where your life feels like it's not worth living, where the pain's just too great, know that it's okay to be honest and ask for help. It's nothing to be ashamed of, and it doesn't mean you're something strange or some kind of burden. It simply means you're human. May you wake to the day when life feels worth living, when joy comes back, hope shows up, love returns. 

If you're reading this, if there's air in your lungs on this day, then there's still hope for you. Your story's still going. And maybe some things are true for all of us. Perhaps we all relate to pain. Perhaps we all relate to fear and loss and questions. And perhaps we all deserve to be honest, we all deserve whatever help we need. Our stories are all so many things. Heavy and light. Beautiful and difficult. Hopeful and uncertain. But our stories aren't finished yet. There's still time, for things to heal, change and grow. There's still time to be surprised. We're stories still going, you and I.

Peace to you today, tomorrow and days ahead. 

Be Biased for Once

Although I spend an absurd amount of time thinking, planning and considering new year's resolutions, I don't necessarily believe in them. I mean I don't think you have to wait until January 1st to start, or that you need to wait until a specific holiday season to begin reflecting about the changes and improvements you'd like to make. I believe there's no time like the present, and that the best time to start is always now. However, I also like what January 1st has become to people. A night of celebrating life and surrounding yourself with the people you love. I like the newness that surrounds midnight, the feeling that you get to start over, or try again. And I especially like the promise that it holds.

What a difference one minute can make. But really, couldn't the same be said for every day? New years are wonderful, but so are new days. I'm sure I say this enough, but each day is a celebration. A new start. Another change to get it right. Every day can be filled with the same motivation to conquer your goals and with the same high expectations you set for yourself  at 12:01 am.

Whether we set your goals for the year or focus on one day at a time, I hope we choose to use every day as an opportunity to be better. To do what we've always hoped and to work on being that person we said we'd become. Real progress takes work, that short term sacrifices will likely result in long term gains. We're worth the time, effort and commitment. I can never come up with one single resolution, I need more time and more thought. But in the meantime, I've been referring to this list that I got from somewhere in Tumblr and I'd like to share with you. :)

When you're sad:

1. Write letters to the people you love. Don't seal them, don't send them. Instead, stick them between the pages of library books.

2. Venture outside and observe natural life. Watch a honey bee suck the nectar from flowers. Watch a snail slowly make its way towards the shade of a tree. Watch a bird innocently fly around the sky. Realize how insignificant you are.

3. Smile at strangers, say hello. It'll improve their day and your own.

4. Write lists. They can be about anything.

5. Read several pages of the dictionary. Learn new words. Write down the ones you wish to remember.

6. Never feel compelled to apologize when you don't feel sorry. It's okay that you're honest. It's okay that you have a different opinion from someone else.

7.  Read books and watch movies from your childhood. A healthy dose of nostalgia is okay. Immerse yourself in your past innocence. 

8. Walk to a park and get on a swing. Go as high as you can, feel limitless. The world is yours.

9. Eat if you're hungry. Food is not the enemy. You're a human and need food to survive. You deserve to eat.

10. Don't marinate in your sadness. You're not a steak. You're a person, you're irreplaceable. Open yourself up to contentment. Bathe in the rivers of glee. Go for hikes with satisfaction. Sleep in a warm cocoon of blankets with bliss. Let endless happiness overcome your hopeless sadness. You deserve to be happy. If life's a game and you're the referee, be biased for once and let happiness win.

5 Years and Counting

Forever can never be long enough for me, to feel like I've had long enough with you..
- Train, Marry Me

The thing about love is that you find a way. It's funny the way things look different when you're in love, the moments are clearer and crisp, but it's the absence of love that makes you notice. I know 6 things about love: 1) it'll make you a better person, 2) it's simple, 3) the more you give, the more you have, 4) it's constant, 5) it can be everything you've hoped for, and 6) it must start with yourself.

I don't know if the world provides us with soulmates, but what I do know is that there's someone I'd pick every time. :)

This man right here, I owe him the world. He has shown me how great it can be to love someone, and how important it is to love and accept myself. He has taught me how to be comfortable in my skin and how to let go of my anger. He has proven to me that there's someone who will love the darkest, scariest parts of you. I've spent 5 years getting to know this beautiful soul as well as to know myself. Within those years we've had some barriers between us, some rough patches, but we're still into each other. I'm so lucky and so blessed to have been given such an amazing and loving man. I thank God every day for sending me such a perfect addition to my life. With him, my weird feels normal and that's all I can ever ask for. 

And today marks our 5th anniversary. Happy anniversary, dearest Ifo. I love you, always have and always will. :)

Marry your best friend. I do not say that lightly. Really, truly find the strongest, happiest friendship in the person you fall in love with. Someone who speaks highly of you. Someone you can laugh with. The kind of laughs that make your belly ache, and your nose snort. The embarrassing, earnest, healing kind of laughs. Wit is important. Life is too short not to love someone who lets you be a fool with them. Make sure they are somebody who lets you cry, too. Despair will come. Find someone that you want to be there with you through those times. Most importantly, marry the one that makes passion, love, and madness combine and course through you. A love that will never dilute - even when the waters get deep, and dark.

A Cure for Restlessness

I remember coming back from a road trip few years ago has left me with a sense of restlessness. It's always hard to go from being in absolute adventure, full of new words and people, to something routine. But it's all about perspective. Throwback moment that I had recently brought my thoughts back to when I was lost in the middle of the town. But it's nice, so I stopped and recalled my childhood moments. Because it's the place I grew up in. There's so much of it I've yet to see. My former life, and yet, that little block I'd never registered in my memory. Or maybe, moving away is what it took for me to notice those things. It's as if you have to leave in order to come home and see what's really there. I have a soul that's always longing to wander. I can't stay indoor even for a week, I'm the kind of person that always wants to be somewhere else. However, I'm still in a season of transition, a time of learning, growing and preparation. I'm not sure what for exactly, but I just know that this is a vital time during which is so important for me to be patient and learn what fuels my soul.

So far I've learned the these, cure for restlessness:

• Tea. Even if you have to microwave the water because you don't have a kettle..

• Books. All kinds. All topics. All the books.

• How I Met Your Mother. Or whatever happens to be your TV fix as of late. Every night as you fall asleep.

• Gratitude. And expressing it.

• Writing letters or postcards. The good, old-fashioned, stick a stamp on it, push it through the mail slot kind.

• Water. Lots.

• Music. As often as you can. As loud as plausible. Singing along.

..and anything nice and easy.

The only way that we can live, is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself.
- C. Joybell C.