#write31days

What sounds fun to you right now.

Yikes, you guys. Grace, please. That’s all I ask. I meant to write earlier today, but then I got really into carving pumpkins with my kids and somehow the whole afternoon disappeared while I was scooping out slimy guts and making jack-o-lantern magic. (They turned out awesome, by the way). And now it’s late and my mind is done working until tomorrow, so this post is going to be some kind of bullshit. Eh, oh well.

1. an entire day of roaming the aisles of Powell’s bookstore in Portland, Oregon by myself with a gift card worth roughly all the money in the world 2. dancing in downtown Seattle until the wee hours of the morning, preferably to hip hop music and also preferably half drunk so I can feel like I’m really good at it

The three people (living or dead) you would invite to a dinner party.

First things first. Scratch the dinner party. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for inviting people into my home to share a meal together. It’s just that I’m more of a paper plates and takeout kind of girl, and if I’ve been given the power to raise the dead for this little soiree, I think it’s safe to assume I can also opt for a coffee table strewn with pizza boxes instead of something more formal. Fingers crossed the guests don’t mind.

Emily Dickinson is first on my list. A thousand times over. (Insert lengthy pause while I struggle to find words suitable to describe my love for her here). I’m serious, you guys, I’m obsessed. I love poetry because of Emily Dickinson. I know what it is to read words crafted by someone else’s hand and find bits of my soul that have never before been named because of Emily Dickinson. She was a genius and a visionary, a beautiful gift of a person. Also, she was familiar with pain and a lot of it was tied into her relationship with her mother. In a letter penned to one of her many literary mentors she once said, “I never had a mother. I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.” So yeah, we’d have a lot to talk about.

I’d also ask Peter to join us. You know, the one from the Bible. His story is one of radical change and I think it’s absolutely fascinating. Peter left everything behind to follow Jesus, only to eventually deny Him three times over, and then he ended up being one of the boldest preachers of all time. He was a straight up emotional roller coaster and so again, quite a bit to talk about.

If you were stranded on a desert island, what would you miss most about your current life?

Can I be really honest with you? Being stuck on a deserted island all by my lonesome sounds pretty damn delightful right now. I know, I know. I should probably answer this question with some sort of talk about missing my children’s laughter or how their tiny voices are pure perfection when they call out “Mama.” Or the way it never stops being funny to me when my husband says its my turn to be the big spoon in bed and how I’d miss that and every other little thing he does that reminds me I am not alone in this crazy ass world. But right now? At this very moment? I just want to call a time out and take a break from life and if I could do it all by myself please and thank you that would be great.

I’m just tired is all. I’m tired of having to throw so much frigging energy into each new day in order to simply be okay, to find some sort of halfway healthy baseline. I want to be living my best life, fully engaged and present and kicking negativity in the butt while I take step after step towards The Promised Land of emotional and relational health. I want to thrive but it’s still so many days of pulling at my damn bootstraps just trying to get through. And I’m tired. Maybe a little bit sick, too. Sick of the struggle, the never-ending fight for freedom and peace and love and rest.

If you were presented with a time machine, where would you go?

I was going to write about the present moment, the here and now, the very place I struggle so much to seize and embrace and enjoy. I was going to write about facing the pain I’ve carried since my earliest years, the pain that’s haunted me day in and day out and held me hostage within myself, a prisoner to my past. I was going to write about the future God has called me to, the dreams He’s spoken into my heart that often seem so far away and impossible, and the way I can lose myself in trying to figure out how the hell it’s all going to happen. I was going to write about the small strides I have taken recently in claiming my life and the present moment that are actually not all that small because it turns out to be fully engaged in the here and now with your whole self is EVERYTHING. And then I was going to say something along the lines of thanks but no thanks to the whole idea of a time machine and leave it at that, heading off to live out the next moment and then the next.

But then I thought about Jesus.

If someone gave me a time machine, like an actual legit one that wouldn’t blow me up or get me lost in some black hole, I’d most definitely travel back to 30 AD or whenever the heck it was that Jesus was walking around the earth. Assuming the machine delivered me somewhere near His general vicinity, I would immediately begin to run around and cry out His name, bellowing into every nearby crowd and cluster of people within sight. My search would be so impassioned that I just might end up in a Bible story: The Parable of the Girl Who Ran Around Like a Crazy Person. I think I would recognize Him as soon as I laid eyes on Him, not because I know what He looks like but because I imagine His gaze would make me feel so deeply seen and loved that I couldn’t help but know it was my Jesus.

Your most important short and long term goals.

Goals freak me out. When you make one you officially have some skin in the game. They’re kind of like the starting line. Shit gets real. I know they’re supposed to be all about bettering yourself, focusing your efforts and unicorn rainbows and what not, but my brain sees a goal and the alarm bells immediately start blaring. Suddenly there’s a clear cut way for me to fail. When you’ve spent your life under the impression that you do not measure up, it’s quite terrifying to think about setting a goal and then not reaching it. Some might say this is where the power of positive thinking comes in, but it happens to be rather difficult to drum up optimism when all you’ve ever known is negativity. It’s hard to shape the day to day into our dreams, the vision we have for our lives, without a goal or two (or eight hundred) though, so fear and negativity be damned. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

Short term goals: Stay sober. Don’t cheat myself out of the opportunity to process through all my shit and grow and as a person by seeking easy (and super temporary!!) relief in beer or weed or half a pepperoni pizza. Resist the urge to numb out and stay present to myself, those around me and the rest of the whole wide world. Be kind to myself and give myself the love I deserve. Don’t let my brain beat myself up and follow my heart. Stay connected to myself and then seek out connection with other people. (I’m in the market for friends, people. Spread the word).

Long term goals: Raise my two sweet babes into healthy, integrated adults who love themselves, are self-assured, engaged in the world around them and eager to live out their own, unique passions. Raise myself to be the same. Be published. Reach people and bring light and love into their lives with my words.

What makes someone beautiful from the inside out.

Some random thoughts because I’ve just had a string of sleepless nights and so bits and pieces are my best right now…

Inner beauty is a tricky thing because sometimes it looks like absolute shit on the outside. Take right now, for instance. My hair is matted and a bit oily in places. I’m wearing the same clothes I had on yesterday and the day before (though new underwear, praise the Lord). The bags under my eyes that I can usually keep in check with the occasional dab of brightening cream have gone full blown haywire. I look every bit as exhausted as I feel, but I also feel calm and centered and grateful. And a whole bunch of other positive things I’ll keep hanging onto thank you very much because even though I’ve just gotten home from a three day hospital stay with my sweet little boy, I’ve spent every bit of that time extending love and gentleness to myself so that I could do the same for him.

I think inner beauty shines brightest in those who are most at home within themselves. There’s just something straight up attractive about a person who knows the ins and outs of who they are and is comfortable in their own skin. Real, true beauty is not specific, it doesn’t look a certain way. It simply comes from making friends with your whole self, all of your light and all of your dark, and facing each moment of every new day with a deep acceptance of what you bring to the table.

A past love who had a significant impact on who you are today.

Your favorite friendship memory.

I’m not big on regrets. I mean, I have them of course. I’ve made the unfortunate decision to cut my own bangs without giving myself the proper amount of time to think it over and then spent the next three months wearing all manner of headbands and hair clips trying to grow them back out without losing my mind. I’ve come to the realization that some particular aspect of my parenting could use tweaking no fewer than a hundred times or so (mostly just because I have no idea what I’m doing) and it’s easy to wish I’d gotten that bit figured out much sooner. There’s also the time I thought it’d be no problem to walk the entire length of Waikiki without stopping for a drink of water. I don’t think I’ve ever been more sorry. My brain has yet to find a way around the occasional foolish decision, imperfection seems inevitable, and so I suppose I’ll continue having regrets. I’m just not big on keeping them around is all. There’s only one good thing to do with a regret and that’s to let it go.