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Mother Nature I Am Hungry

For the longest time, I used to tell myself to just be happy. When things would get scary or difficult, I used to tell myself to just keep smiling through it. 

And things haven't changed too much, considering I'm still an optimist and typically a very happy/hopeful person, but I'm very glad that I got to a point where I was able to realize how badly "just being happy" was hurting me.

I know it sounds crazy. You're probably reading this right now thinking- girl. What the hell? Why would you want to stop just being happy? How the hell is being happy hurting you? 

So I'll tell you. Right here, right now, I will tell you why. 
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"Happy" has always been, at least in my eyes, the most ambiguous and generic word. I mean really. The same goes for all emotions, I think, but happiness seems to be the most complex. 

I talk a lot on here about what it was like to go through therapy during my senior year of high school, and I don't do that for no reason. 

I write about that experience and the things I learned from it because I know it shaped who I am today and I want people to know that having to get help is not anything to be ashamed of. 

During my third week of my therapy sessions, I walked in smiling and I still don't know why. 

"You're smiling," my counselor said, laughing. "Why? Are you happy?"

I thought about it for a second. 

"In this moment, yeah," I told her. "But as a whole, no. Not really. Not at all."
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We talked for a little over an hour that day, and later that night in my journal I wrote several pages about how I was feeling. 

The following is a segment from my journal entry on September 18, 2015: 

"I think my problem is I'm an on-the-surface person. I try to ignore negative feelings just to not put myself through pain. I try to distract myself from feeling anything because I'm afraid whatever I will feel will be too much for me. I think I tell myself to be happy and to pretend like things don't hurt, and in doing that I'm just hurting myself more. I'm not a "cover up your skinned knee with a Band-Aid until it heals" person. I want to see the wound. I want to rinse it out until it burns. I'm not scared of blood, why am I covering myself up?"
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That was the night I decided to open myself up to the world. I realized that if I wanted to heal, I would have to expose the wounds. I would have to rinse myself clean. 

I told myself that night to stop "just being happy," and to let myself really feel things. Even if they hurt. Even if they tore me apart. Even if they burned so bad they broke me. I decided in that moment to stop being afraid of feeling sad or heartbroken or confused. I decided to stop being happy on the surface just for the sake of distracting myself from whatever it was that wanted to eat away at me. 

I decided to starve. 
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Not in the sense that I decided to stop eating. I just came to understand that it was time to let the world start feeding me everything it had. Every joy, pain, sorrow, success, fear, flashback, triumph, letdown, nightmare, love, everything. 

I exist to be fed by the complexity of the Earth.

Anything the world can fuel me with, I welcome with an empty stomach and grateful hands. 

It was then that I demanded that Mother Nature feed me, and she obliged- as soon as I promised I would return the favor by creating. By feeding myself back to the world as willingly and bravely as possible.
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So in my determination to fulfill my promise to create and to ensure that I continue to be well fed, I have been working long and hard on authoring my own book. 

I've already shared some parts of it with you here and on my various social media pages, but I've finally decided to give you all a little bit more insight into the development of the book and why I'm writing it.

"Mother Nature I Am Hungry- NOTES TO THE UNIVERSE" is the title of the work, and it is a compilation and mini-collection of poems I have written about what it is like to let myself feel everything. 

When I first started writing poetry and wanting to share it, I never would have imagined getting the downpour of love and support that I have- and for that I am endlessly thankful. 

To the ones who have held me when I've cried, laughed with me, taken me on adventures, stayed on the phone with me to make sure I'm okay, pushed me to be my best and encouraged me to always aspire to be better- I love you so much and you are undoubtedly the reasons why I have the heart to write the things I write. 

I may be the author of this book, but the people like you in my life- and especially you, if you're reading this now, have almost written it for me. 

You are the soul that spills onto my notebook pages in letters that form sentences that turn into the stories I am so lucky to get to tell. 

This book is me just as much as it is those who have helped me get here. 

"Mother Nature I Am Hungry- NOTES TO THE UNIVERSE" can't come soon enough. I am so lucky to be able to share it with you and I can't wait until it fills your hands the same way writing it has filled my heart. 

xox, author/poet/dreamer/human.
stay lucky and stay hungry. 
stay tuned for updates-- and above all, stay fed. 
i love you. thank you.
 Image credit: Randy Tobias

He didn't know he was taking my photo at the exact moment I decided to write a book.
Life, you are wild. 









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