lately

Here are some things i'm really into or just simply really enjoy lately:

1. VOTING! go vote. we all know you are super cool and hilarious and informed and have opinions and might bitch about the future, so go vote. it's important. it's your right. it's fun.  oh, and it's important.  like really important.

2. this article among others from thought catalog 

3. zoe muth. beautiful southern twang in her voice.

4. remembering how amazing this album is.




5. dreams of the future

6. remembering how talented and amazing my friends are.
    i.e. frankie

7. READING books! whoa.  currently: dearie, the omnivore's dilema, and big sur

honesty

i have decided that i want to be. to be more. to be more consistantly. to live more.

i know i sound like a silly twenty something that lives in asheville right now, but seriously.

i want to experience more. to stop living amongst judgement and fear, but more around the doers.

i want to read books and create and have real relationships and to feel confident and honest and myself.

that's all i've ever really wanted.  really.



i found this that i wrote on my birthday this year.


i find it rich and completely appropriate to celebrate, or at least acknowledge, that you have life, time passes, life is beautiful.  time is changing us.  growth is occurring.  things are becoming the past.  the future becoming the present.  the answers becoming clearer. the questions gaining more parts. 


i think it's honest.

i find myself inspired by my own thoughts a little over six months ago.
i think that is something to hold dear.

transformation

transformation happens in one fail swoop, but do we have the hearts and minds to pay attention?


a dear friend posed this to me a couple days ago while i was finalizing my goodbye/thank you letters to my previous bosses and simmering in my transition over espresso.   i find this question ominous and brilliant.  yet troubling, i suppose.

do we have the hearts and minds to pay attention?
do we?

is that why so many things seem to pass us by? because we are simply not paying attention.

my hope is that i will not be so adrift or so caught up that i cannot see the transformation in front of me.
let me be engaged in my world around me.
allowing my heart and my mind to fully absorb what it is that surrounds me.

time has changed us.
for the better.

today i cleaned out my inbox.  i had over 3,000 unread messages.
no, i'm not that popular.  no, i'm not famous.
yes, i have a problem.  yes, i sign up for newsletters and coupons and clubs and never EVER read the emails.  yes, the first step is recognizing my problem.  i get it.  it's ridiculous.
but as of right now, i have ZERO unread messages.

today, i bought a new macbook pro.  i have had this one currently typing this blog for over four years and i bought it from a friend used.  it has been loved and is acting like a dinosaur.  i will need to be more social network-y and mobile for my new job so i decided to grow up and bite the bullet. and i feel good.  no buyers remorse here. it will be here so soon. ahhh.

today, i will sit in the sun and read my copy of Garden and Gun that came to me today and i will be happy.

and here i am, realizing that i'm a writer.  again.  and i want to write.

i have wanted to stay private for a while, for some much needed self care and understanding.

but prepare yourselves to be apart of my world, the beauty and brokenness that it is,
if anyone even reads this anymore.
lovelovelove.

hi.
it's been a while.
my life, as life in general goes, has been in a constant state of change and movement.
mostly good, positive movement.
movement in many ways.

change is good. necessary. beautiful.
yet change is also hard. challenging. painful.

there is always a part of big change that takes leaving something behind.  whether it be part of the person you once were, the memories, the stillness.
change puts fear in me.  and i take it in. soak in it during the transition. because that is the only way i know how to deal with it.  the only way i know how to not long for it afterwards.  i must soak. absorb. drench my soul in all that once was in order to be prepared and be entirely whole and present for the whatever the future may hold.

in this change, i have realized that my way of dealing with my change is difficult to watch from the outside at times.

perspective.
perspective has forced me to dig in and figure out why i do what i do. why certain things are difficult for my heart. why i make certain things difficult.

growth is eminent.
change is beauty.
i am understanding.

more & more.

I'm thinking about years gone by 
I'm thinking about church at midnight 
I'm thinking about letting go 
I think that might finally be alright 


simmering on the years past, 
all the loves and losses, all the joys and tribulations, 
my heart is happy today 
even in the loneliest moments, even in the sad ones, 
i can confidently say that i am happy. 
i have learned and grown and seen and been opened up
once again
and i'm reminded that its all forward motion. 
it has to be. 


But this is where we shine 

and sometimes love is all my heart can have. it has been a hard year. a long year. an exhausting one and a revealing one. 
unexpected-ness around all the corners. 
and strength has been pulled from places of defeat
it has been and now we're here remembering. 



Then I'm gonna catch my breath 
And make it a long December 
If we've got nothing left 
This could be worth remembering 
With a smile upon my face 


Silver bells and open fire 
And songs we used to sing 
One more chance to be inspired 
Is what I'm offering if love is not enough 
Then stay with me because 
The heartache can wait




one more chance to be inspired. 
merry christmas to all. 

A great sin: the fear, and ultimately paralyzation, of becoming.

You are not who you want to be, and the path is unclear, so you sit down in the dirt. The cloud of dust is comforting for awhile as it has the illusion of movement, but you’ve been fooled. The dust settles on your increasingly stiffened muscles. Rigamortis, God forbid. God forbid.

God forbid you sit in on the path and refuse maturation. God forbid you let the dust settle and you deny redemption. God forbid the fear of taking a step forward or backward or left or right and you deny process. God, in great humility, does not forbid failure. God does not forbid mistakes. God does not forbid missteps. Go fail and fail well! is the voice of God. Do nothing! is the voice of evil.

Stillness is not dualistic. There is a good, sacred stillness, and there is an evil stillness: the stillness of fear. You cannot stay in the desert. You may go to the desert, and you may be in the desert for a time, but if you stay then you choose death. Leave the desert. Leave now while you can, while you are still alive. Leave while you are able to choose to work out your life with good fear and with good trembling. We have so little time and we have so much time.

thanks longbrake