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. 

When Dust Settles

Endings keep popping up in conversation lately. Stories of leaving, of finishing. Stories of conclusion. I for one have never been good with endings. I'm a beginnings person, someone who revels in the delight of change and enjoys navigating new territory. Endings startle and stun me, stop me right in my tracks. I never know how to negotiate the aftermath because I'm afraid to see the dust settle.

Looking back, I haven't allowed for many endings. I've managed to steer most of my experiences and relationships so that they land on a forever timeline, or at least something close to it. Come to think of it, some of the most heartbreaking endings have been leaving certain places. I knew as I left those places that my time there was over and I struggled, wrestling with that knowledge and doing my best to pretend it wasn't so. Even now they're the places that tend to fill my daydreams, absence makes the heart grow fonder, etc.

This is all to say that it's hard to close the back cover. With books I find myself clutching the final flimsy pages and re-reading them over and over again, wishing I could stay in the world just a little bit longer. More often than not, I'd rather balance along the edges of an ending, unsteady, than see the conclusion rise up to meet me. Isn't that sort of how it goes, though?

Well, I'm leaving home soon.

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.

An Open Letter to Socality Barbie

Dear Socality Barbie,

I spilled my coffee this morning trying to take a photo of it. It's dumb to even ask why I was trying to document the experience, I wanted people to know that I'd gotten up, made my own coffee, and was now preparing to conquer the first Monday of November. Why else would I need the perfect morning lighting and my cellphone at 6am? My mom looked at me and blinked twice like, "why are you even taking a picture of it?" Now not a single soul knows how authentically I managed to live this morning with my coffee. If you felt like your day's missing something then it's probably that photo. Happy to solve the mystery for you, Barbie.

But do you know what happened after the coffee spilled this morning? Life moved forward without the documentation. I made my new coffee. It's still good and piping hot. No one's made better or worse because of some inspirational caption I planned to pair with a photo softened by VSCO Cam. I tasted real life for a second and it felt pretty foreign on my lips. I wrapped myself in a blanket and a little bit of conviction for this day: why is it necessary to obsess over making life look perfect for the others? We all know it isn't. Why does the charade play on until something breaks? Glass or a heart, why can't I actually show you my real mess?

…

You weren't made to have my actual, day-to-day mess. It's you and a couple hundred or thousand followers who are not equipped for what happens when my junk actually hits the fan. You and I both know it, Barbie: the day you get drunk and leave Ken, and act like an angry train wreck with a megaphone on all your social media streams then people on the fringes won't want you anymore. It's harsh but probably true. Ken's friends will unfollow you. So manage your mess, Barbie. We want a mess we can monitor from the people we follow. We want honesty without the bruising. We want the kind of pain that's digestible and won't disturb our days. The day you use social media as a megaphone for your pain, the kind of pain latte art can't touch, people will leave you.

Some people will start talking in their circles the day you start to let the anger and the rant statuses flow. They'll start psycho-analyzing and putting the pieces together from a safe distance. They'll take social media and turn it into a soap opera, sigh out of relief as they say, "at least I'm doing better." But when did tiny glimpses of our lives, cropped to perfection, become the measuring stick for who's doing better and who's doing worse? When did life, and managing to live it, become a competition and a comparison? When did we confuse the real with fake and the fake with real?

Maybe I'm being a little too cruel to you, Barbie, seeing as you're not really 'real' but I reminded her of all the times people manage to say, "well, that person was fun to follow until that happened." And we all know what that thing was. Point's this: we want you right now, Barbie. We like you right now. You're doing something awesome and managing to make some really great puns of out of posed coffee shots and #liveauthentic hashtags. When you're doing something awesome people will always want to claim you and tag you. When you're making life look easy then people want to follow you.

…

Social media's in the DNA of our relationships now. It scares me to say that but it's true. I wanted to see how a friend's doing the other day and I clicked into her Instagram. I checked her off my mental list without even using the phone in my hand to perform the task it's always meant to do, dial and hear a person's crackly voice on the other line, find out they're okay. I know how damaging that action of mine was. I know because I sat across from a friend, and I heard them say to me, "from the looks of social media, you are doing just fine."

Them saying that, it broke my heart. It broke my heart to think that, because I had white walls in all my pictures, it meant there's no longer a reason to reach out and ask if I was really doing okay. Barbie, I'm so afraid to check people off my list because of surface level visuals. I'm so afraid to find out, too late, that I needed to ask "how are you" before someone died inside and no one could get to them. Please don't hide within the cracks of the exposed-brick breweries and trendy tiled coffee shops you find. If you're lost, pick up the phone and call someone. If you think you're about to lose someone (and yes, there's a gut feeling for that), pick up the phone and call them. Ask them 4 words: are you really okay? We save lives everyday when we just manage to speak up.

…

This whole letter might be a terrible waste. Maybe your life's as perfect as you portray it to be, Barbie. In that case, congratulations! You beat us all with your plastic lattes and trendy hiking boots. Regardless, I hope you find something real today. Something tangible and intangible, all at the same time, that you would skip the act of documenting it just so you could live inside it for a little bit longer. I hope you spot a rare, soon to be extinct, moment. And I hope it's all yours, no need to share it. Maybe it's the smile of an old man who's going to leave this earth real soon. Maybe it's a piece of a mail from a friend you used to be able to trace the scent of when they showed up in a room. Maybe it's a single dance from a cute stranger at a wedding who makes you feel like you're the most beautiful thing in his orbit.

Either way, I hope you feel known. I hope you feel picked out and chosen. I hope something grabs you so hard, shakes you so good, that even the notifications can't touch it. You're not fake, Barbie. You, like the rest of us, are probably just doing the best you can within a world that wants to trace and tag every tiny, beautiful piece of itself.

Ask the Question

You want more love. To be in love. In love with your life.

You want more adventure. More chances, and with it the guts to grab them with both hands, greedily and hungry, knowing you deserve to dive into every opportunity your belly aches for when nobody else is looking.

You want to understand how it feels to try, really try. To trust yourself in succeeding beyond your wildest, most inventive daydreams. You can't even comprehend what's waiting for you yet: that's how daring your future is.

You want the security of self to demonstrate, without permission, without restraint, that your vulnerability is your biggest strength, and that your humanness is your greatest asset.

You want to know, mind, body, heart and soul, that who you are is already exactly perfect.

You want to be enough.

I know that sometimes you settle for less because the prospect of daring to ask if you can take up more space, of demanding more, is crippling in its "but people might not like it" murmurs. There's that voice. a voice stubbornly rooted, deep down in your belly, that whispers, even at your best: nope, you can't do this.

"What if it doesn't work?"

"I'll prove everyone right when I screw this up."

"It's better to be safe than to be sorry."

"People like me don't live lives like that."

Listen, sugar. You deserve to conquer the absolute shit out of your kingdom. To be the protagonist of your own beautiful life. You're worthy of the room it takes to spread yourself wide open, legs akimbo, hands behind your back, surveying the land from your throne as you say, without a trace of shame, here I am. Here's what I want.

Know your place. Who the Beyoncé are you to keep yourself small? Who the Virginia Woolf told you to not to swell, not to open your heart and your wings, lest you fly? Are you telling that to yourself? Quit it. Re-write the script. Right now. Actively choose, demand, from yourself and from the world, to direct your life according to your rules. Because your place? Your place is in the sky, soaring. Your place is front and centre. Your place, your purpose, is what you say it is.

The alternative is a half-life. A half-truth. A half-you. The good stuff isn't designed to only happen to other people. The universe wants the good stuff for you. It's not a privilege to know who you are. You don't need to await consent to show all of your parts. To be you. To possess your truth. The show has already begun. The cameras are rolling and it's your line. What are you going to say?

- me writing to myself

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.

Pieces

An incomplete list of things that are mostly inconvenient but all true, concerning values, and how they change.

- I self-identify as a documentarian. A sort of variation on a memoirist. I want to write things down as a way of taking their picture and framing them. To capture something. But I'm not a "writer". I'm just a human.

- To that end, what I do decide to chronicle has an agenda, and that agenda is mine, and changes, and is dressed in the sure knowledge that every narrator's unreliable. The eye doesn't see, it transmits. And it transmits to an information processor, the complicatedly simple brain, that's loaded with feelings and past hurts and triumphs and feelings.

- Living out loud isn't a character defect...

- ...but the best plan's to just do good work and shut up. That says more than I can, anyway.

- I have a list of regrets that I try to shed a little more light on every goddamn day. A chronicle of shitty things I've done, and shitty things I've tolerated, and humiliations on both sides because of it. But you'd better believe those things have been my best teachers, or, at least, the most vociferous ones. I'm only an asshole if I don't learn from them. 

- "A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It's a terrible fight between 2 wolves. One wolf is evil. He's anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf's good. He's joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight's going on inside you." The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?" The old man replied simply, "The one you feed." This fable is my true north.

- People are built 3 ways: as subtractors, adders, or multipliers. Subtractors are energy vampires, adders contribute to your energy, and multipliers make you see stars. A person's categorization is directly related to the amount of drama they bring to your life: if they add to it, they're a subtractor; if they subtract from it they're a multiplier. Friendships are maths, and your tribe's a reflection of your vibe.

- Less is always more in word counts, and in accessorizing.

- An author said that the heart's a muscle and so should be exercised regularly. Show up. Practice loving. Practice some more. A few dents is the trade-off.

- I hate being the boss, and I hate having a boss.

- There's more than one self. I'm hard and soft, confident and unnerved, ready to go big and also ready to go home. No one thing's any more or less true than the other, and I can be all of them at once.

- Charisma is the ability to make both of you feel good.

- I think I'm scared, but my fear got me this far. That's surely a bigger victory than feigning fearlessness. If I wasn't afraid, it wasn't a challenge, and it's the challenges I rise to I'd like to be counted by when you read my eulogy.

- I have 3 core desired feelings: strong, committed and inspired. If what you're offering doesn't tick all of those boxes, it doesn't feel good. If it doesn't feel good I don't wanna do it. Life should be lived in the joyous zone, else what's the point?

- I can never go deep enough. I confront my fears. Go into it willingly. That's juicy, to me, exploring aliveness for aliveness' sake. 

- Life's a conversation. A dialogue. We have to sit down with her regularly and ask, "Hey. this working for you?" We have to seek out the pain and own it before the pain owns us. We have to look for the happy and show her who is in charge. We must be active in our peace.

- I secretly think my feelings are more valid than your feelings, but I'm working on it.

Of Ambivalence

I've had to do a few things of late that have been really quite difficult. Mostly because I've been deeply ambivalent about doing them. For the majority of my life I thought ambivalence was about not caring, when actually it's about caring in different directions, wanting 2 things that seem to oppose one another. I both desperately want this and desperately don't. I can hold those opposing truths in both hands at the same time. The Libra in me tries to weigh them, but that's not really the point.

I'm fine. And I'm not.

This is okay. And also, it's not.

I both want this and really, really don't.

I recently had to make a decision about something and was torn by my warring desires. I spoke to my girlfriends and got their advice, but realized, at the end of the day, the decision was mine alone. And that decision didn't really have anything to do with my wants or needs, so much as what I believe. What I believe in. Which is to say, my value system. Which is to say, who I am.

Value systems are incredible because they cut through the noise very, very quickly. And a path erupts before us. But very often that path is the most difficult, mostly because it has to do with vulnerability and telling the truth. So I swipe on an extra coat of lipstick for courage and practice remaining soft, feeling the things, all of the things, that are so very hard, but give life nearly all of its meaning.

Curated Life

Years ago I went to a prom night. It wasn't fun. It should have been fun, but it's really not. When images of that party appeared on Facebook days later it looked like a blast. In fact it looked spunky and joyful and really, really lovely. And that's when I understood, really and truly, that almost nothing on the social media is as it appears. That, in fact, the appearance of a life is often at the expense of life itself. 

I know this. I've seen this. From both sides. And still occasionally I'll see photos and feel the knee-jerk reaction of I-wish. I wish that was mine. I wish that was my life. More and more I've seen think-pieces about how we need to examine that impulse in ourselves. There's finger-pointing, but we pointing the finger at ourselves. And I get that, I do. I'm the first person who will take on blame, even if it's clear the blame isn't mine to take (this is not a good quality). But this self-reflection assumes, to a certain extent, that everyone's willing to take the time to do that. And it lets the medium, which is to say the internet, off the hook. But the thing is, while you can put a verified checkmark next to a person's twitter handle, there isn't any real policing of validity beyond that. Search algorithms are based on popularity, not truthfulness, and certainly not value.

We see a curated picture and we want the handbag, the heels, the husband, the wedding, the life. And okay, yes, we have to approach the image with critical awareness, but that takes a pretty high level of intelligence. It's like asking consumers not to gain weight in a society where food is specifically designed to get us to eat more than we need, or even want. Not-gaining-weight nowadays is far harder than maintaining weight and yet we blame the consumer. I think there has to be change on both sides, how we produce and how we consume. 

And I fear sometimes, that the bloggers who respond to the criticism that their life's too curated, aren't actually the bloggers presenting the most highly curated lives. Because there's a difference between boundaries, meaning what one's willing to discuss and what one keeps private, and a stylized representation of what's presented. I guess what I want to say is this: it's okay to feel like shit sometimes when you're looking at other peoples' lives online. In fact, a lot of people are banking on it, they all make a lot more money that way.

By Grace I'll Carry On

I read a book entitled Your Perfect Right. It's all about assertiveness and it's one of the very best things I've ever read. I suggest that all people everywhere read it..we'd all be much kinder and better if we did, hopefully. 

Here's the long and short of it: there's passive, there's assertive, and there's aggressive..and oh yeah, passive aggressive, which is umbrella-ed under the aggressive category. Assertiveness has to do with speaking honestly, in the moment, in a way that allows all parties to be heard. 

One of the things that really stuck with me is that in situations where you already know that no good will come from speaking up, to do so, is aggressive. This one bothered me. Because it felt somehow unfair. Because I wanted to be heard, darn it. But the thing is, in both professional and personal settings, sometimes whatever you might say, even if it's the most thought-out, reasonable thing in the world, may change nothing. And if that's the case, it's not worth saying in the first place. Some things are like drought season, all you can do is live through them and wait for the season to change. And if the season doesn't change, then it may be best to walk away or leave, with as much kindness as you can muster. Because as Drew Barrymore once said: endless love and constant boundaries. Which occasionally means the boundary becomes: walk away. With grace, walk away. 

I read something recently about letting grace be bigger than our mouths. That's what I'm grappling with right now. Grace. To assert my worth, to set some boundaries, and to do it with as much grace as I possibly can, which very often means not saying everything I want to. Or, in other words, shutting up. 

Because here's the thing about life: there are end-dates. People move out and friends grow apart and the season does pass. And sometimes a person gets on a plane and goes somewhere else entirely and life begins again and we do our best, even if it's a stumbling, stuttering attempt, we do our best.

Show Up and Break Open

Here's the thing, I am trying to show up for life. I'm trying to give voice to my days. Trying to break open. But right now, my life's in a middle-ground. It's neither here nor there. Frankly, I'm exhausted.

Yesterday, I was sick and slept all day. It was the strangest sensation to watch an entire 24 slip by and to be an observer of my life and not a participant. Yesterday was a fog, a veiled face and an unassuming moment. I woke up at 10, perhaps I'll feel better at noon. Then it was a quarter to 1 and I was uncomfortable. I stood up and almost fell over. I went into another room and curled up on a couch. How are you feeling? Better, I said, when I really meant worse. Sickness does something to your head. Mine shook.

I laid down on the couch and when I woke up next, it was 4. I wasn't sure where I was. I heard voices and couldn't place them to faces. I was going to do yoga this evening, I laughed and moaned and rolled over. When I looked at the clock next, it was almost 7. In a span of 10 minutes, the light in the room went from butter yellow to deep blue shadows like the evening was a bruise heavy under the skin. My stomach hurt but my head felt better. I fell asleep again. Then it was 8 and afterwards 9 and I ate sandwich, watched Running Man, and finished the day like I had started it, asleep.

This morning I woke up and felt better. Not perfect, but better. Side note, isn't that the case with almost everything in life? I feel better, but not perfect. Digressing. And mulling. Besides feeling better, I also felt panicked. It was irrational but the thought of missing 24 hours of my life set me into a frenzy. 24 hours.

Sometimes life's really hard. That's an understatement. Writing about it seems like trying to collect water by pouring it through a sieve. Everything runs through me and I wonder, where to begin? Or, why? What's the balance between over sharing and being honest, and is there a disconnect that lies with the two? What happens when you have nothing to write at all, or what you have to say is boring, underwhelming, inherently ordinary? What then?

Sometimes, it seems like too much. I'm inundated with things I need to say, words that crawl under my skin, moments that leave me open-handed, chasing wind. Other times, I'm a dry well, scraped raw and emptied of everything. Then I say to life, pour into me, in all your beauty and pain and joy. That's when life asks, will you give back? And there lies the act of showing up. Morning and morning. Returning to the page. Returning to the road, to the pavement, to the poetry, to the music, to the rhythm of your life. So I do and we do and we hope to make something honest, something that matters, in our 24 hours.

Because, goodness, I don't want to live my life asleep.

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.

The Picture on the Wall

You know when you hang a new picture on the wall? At first, you glance at it every single time you pass by. Maybe you even smile and stop to admire it. But then after a while, it just seems to sort of blend into the landscape. It becomes 'just' a picture. 'Just' a photo. You pass by it every single day, you see it, but you don't. Not really. It becomes something that's just there.

Until one day. The day that picture gets taken down. You pass by that place where it used to hang and you immediately notice that something is amiss. You can't quite put your finger on it, but you know something is missing. So you look around and you notice the wall and it's bare. Where once was color, a dreamy landscape, a smiling face, there remains now only an echo. A rectangular imprint on the wall where that frame once hung. That square of paint which the sun's rays had never had the chance to brighten...until now. 

And in that moment you realize just how much that picture transformed the place where it used to hang. Maybe it was for the better, or maybe for the worse. Maybe you miss it, or maybe you don't. But whatever the case, there is a valuable lesson to be learned from that picture: the little things, however little, matter. Maybe we don't see them, or maybe we like to pretend we don't, or maybe we just never stopped to look, but they do.

Look around. Observe. Admire. Because the little things, so often taken for granted, won't always stick around forever. One day they will take with the current and swim away. Please, don't let that be the day you realize how much they mean to you.

It's Okay to be Messy

I'm guilty of wearing masks. Specifically, the lovely, I've got it all figured out.

It's easier to slap on a smile, put up a pretty photo, write a few words, and be done. Easy to blog a session or write about what's good, instead of what's hard. Easy to put on a face and skim the surface instead of being real and honest and raw. Easy to make it seem like my life's less than messy, more like a picture perfect magazine rather than being filled with grittiness and real things like staying up too late working and getting behind on deadlines and being insecure.

I want to be honest and real. I don't want to appear like I have it all together or because I'm doing so and so, I'm somehow "better" or "cooler" or "more professional." or I've somehow reached "that point" (whatever it is, it doesn't really exist), where I've got it all figured out. Because that's so far from the truth. :)

So. Here's the truth...

I still get nervous before every session.

I care too much what people think and struggle with my identity.

I fear I don't measure up.

I focus on my fears instead of resting in God's truth and promises.

I get stuck between pushing myself and being proud of myself.

I have trouble believing in myself.

I feel like I'm faking it and won't ever make it.

I struggle with punctuality and diligence every single day.

But there's grace in the midst of those real things. And I don't have it all together. Not by a long shot. But I'm learning. I'm growing. I'm learning to let go of my perfectionism and to be confident in the gifts I've been given and use them to the best of my abilities...that doesn't mean I get a free pass to beat myself up if I "mess up" or don't meet my own expectations. There's a difference between pushing ourselves to be better and ignoring the strengths and gifts we do have, because we fear we don't measure up.

And I fear I don't measure up all the time. Because of my age. Because of where I'm at. Because I can't drive yet. Because I don't have ____ or ____(whatever it may be). Because I did or didn't receive this many comments (yes, even silly things like that). Because I'm not a permanent teacher. Because I don't work out everyday or eat totally green and on and on.

But none of that matters. That's not where my identity lies. I can find joy and I can find who I am in the things of this world or I can embrace who I am in this beautifully messy life I've been given.

Here's the deal. It's easy to reach a certain point and think that we've got it made. Whatever it is..that we'll be good. That all our insecurities and fears will go away and somehow we'll live in this overwhelming confidence. And those things are not necessarily bad..in fact, they can be really good! But when we start basing our identity in where we're at instead of who we are, then we lose the heart behind what we do and who we truly are.

I struggle with my identity. I get nervous around other teachers and students, bloggers, and well, sometimes just people in general. I'm afraid that I don't measure up. I worry about whether people will like me and I put too much stock in what other people's opinions of me are, instead of being confident in who I am. And it's an everyday choice for me to focus not on what the world says, but what God says. That I don't have it all together and that's okay. I don't have to be perfect. It's okay to be messy.

Some Thoughts and Oscars

You are special.
You are beautiful.
You are wonderful.
You are smart.
You are worth it.

Are any of those statements familiar? Yes, of course. Society throws them at us every day. They're supposed to 'boost our self-esteem'. Make us feel good about ourselves. And I'm not saying that's necessary a bad thing. But really, when did we get to the point where society needed to tell us we're beautiful and worth it? When did we get so caught up in ourselves? So worried about how pretty we are and how smart and how special? Maybe it's time to look around more. It's not all about how we feel. Maybe instead of entertaining ourselves all the time, we should look for more opportunities to entertain or serve others. Maybe we shouldn't let our moods guide our actions so much. Our feelings are not at the center of the universe. Maybe it's time we stop acting like they are.

It's just something that I thought about when I was at school today. Yep, I'm teaching again. But I don't want to talk about that now because I want to talk about Oscars. Did you watch it today? OMG Neil Patrick Harris was hosting, Channing Tatum was presenting, and Tegan and Sara were performing Lego Movie's "Everything Is Awesome"!! Those have completely made my day. And congratulations to all the winners! So here's my picks for the best dressed stars from the 87th Oscars red carpet:

Keira Knightley in Valentino

Kelly Osbourne in Rita Vinieris 

Felicity Jones in Alexander McQueen

Julianne Moore in Chanel

Chloe Grace Moretz in Miu Miu

Anna Kendrick in Thakoon

Gwyneth Paltrow in Ralph & Russo

Dakota Johnson in Yves Saint Lauren

Emma Stone in Elie Saab

Jenna Dewan Tatum in Zuhair Murad

Anna Faris in Zuhair Murad

Rita Ora in Marchesa

Scarlett Johansson in Atelier Versace

Jennifer Lopez in Elie Saab

Lupita Nyong'o in Calvin Klein

Rosamund Pike in Givenchy

Ah I love them all! But my favorites are J.Lo, Emma Stone and Scarlett Johansson. ;) Which one's your favorite? 

The Lists

Lists are so dear to me partially because they're unique to the moment you wrote them. From grocery lists, from to-do-lists detailing the day (run in the morning, write and read in the afternoon, piece time together for tea around 4). The "here-now" of these lists tug my heart, and I see some crossed off, others standing bold and waiting to be done. Make soup for dinner, Chinese fried rice and steamed chicken. Bundle up before a walk, remember a cardigan. Buy more apples. Pick up dry leaves on the driveway. 

If I was a poet I'd write a piece but for now, I'll catch syllables between rhythms and round the rhymes into letters half between cursive and print that range from words between clean my room and buy a birthday gift for my sister. And yet, there's a piece caught between the lines. My line is cast and I sit quietly in a boat, holding my pole tight and waiting to snag words. I'm a fisher woman of stories and stories in all forms, from photos to books to music to drawings to designs to the halfway letters of a list not finished. I collect the discarded grocery lists in the bottom of my purse, the leftover pages of a packing list for weekend getaway crumpled in the pocket of my bag, a few hurried lines of to-do before lunch.

There's a beauty and grace to the change of seasons and the differences that come in our homes and hearts within them. Some days are for quiet and abundance of simple. If we had a hearth, ours would be lit. I'm sucker to the romantic and pretty things but will not disregard the simple, because honesty is the best. 

Things that catch my eye:

light

cats

quirks

wispy curls

steam and smoke and fog

reflections

dabs of color

continuity errors in movies

textures

Books I'm reading:

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

Anna and The French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Songs that I could hear over and over again:

Yellow by Coldplay

When It Rains by Paramore

100 Years by Five for Fighting

Somewhere Only We Know by Keane

Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men.

Happen Ending by Epik High

Chandelier by Sia

Things I don't want to purchase (but need to anyways):

a haircut

a power bank

new bag

new jeans

an iPod

What I want to get better at this year:

going to bed early

giving grace (always)

being intentional with my time

eating healthier

affirming

creating art that matters

baking gluten free

punctuality

getting fit

Some things I'm excited about:

weddings

traveling plans

being healthy

the weekend

going shopping for food

making lasagna

new job

Names I like:

Levi

Sophie

Gwen

Audrey

Heather

Aimee

Myrabell

Plans for the rest of the week.

take a walk

go out for lunch and coffee

order pizza

mail postcards

get my inbox cleaned

tidy my room and declutter and simplify

workout

Outside my window:

bird nest on a tree

an acrylic sky painted blue

slippers on neighbor's roof

cat's footprints on sandy pavement

sunlight warm across the neighborhood

quiet

Unpredictable

The weather has been so strange lately, so unpredictable. For days we've seen a mix of sun and fog, extreme heat one day followed by brisk cold the next. Yesterday, what felt like a light breeze suddenly turned into a gust of wind so powerful I had to stop in the middle of the street so to keep from blowing right over. Needless to say, things have been changing rather suddenly these days, rather unexpectedly.

As a creature of habit, as someone who leans toward the familiar, toward routine, it usually bothers me when weather isn't steady, when I wake up and don't have any idea what I'll find outside my window. Usually, that makes me uneasy. Recently, though, my life has matched the odd weather; things have been constantly shifting, any sense of routine tossed right out the window.

And it's been just what I needed. Invigorating, exhilarating, altogether satisfying. Funny, isn't it, how sometimes we believe we know just what we need, when all along the universe knows better?

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?

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.