Evolve or remain.

Several weeks ago I sat down to work on one of these posts from my bedroom floor for the last time... and didn't know it. Several weeks ago, I couldn't hear echos coming back to me from the same walls that had been stuffed with the last 11 years of my wild little life. Several weeks ago I HAD to be sitting on my floor to get any writing done because my desk was overflowing with homework assignments, poetry drafts, half-full nail polish bottles and the Ibuprofen tablets that kept me standing through the toughest semester yet in terms of my mental health.  Things are a little bit different now.  My room is empty. There aren't clothes in the closet anymore, or artwork on every wall, or twinkle lights across the top of the curtains. There aren't yesterday's shoes in the corner and there's no smeared mascara on the pillowcases. There aren't loud guinea pig squeals coming from it anymore. It's clean, and quiet, and you can hardly tell that it hosted mor...

"I have way too much that I really need to get done," I JUST said to myself, as I'm sitting down writing this, ignoring all of it. It's too much to ask for my creativity to hit me in waves at convenient hours, it turns out, so here we are. Welcome back. I've been keeping quiet for a while so I'm warning you now, I've got a lot to say. My focus lately has been entirely on my peace of mind and my journey of self-preservation, but I'm finding that I'm finally ready to tell you about it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the last two weeks, I've removed 4,000+ people from my social media. I've been unfollowing, unfriending, and disconnecting entirely from THOUSANDS of people and pages that were destructive to my mental health for one reason or another. It doesn't make sense to me to keep people around if we're not actively engaged in one another's lives. If we're not checking in wit...

I know very little about being a parent, but I do know that nothing in this world is going to stop me from being the best mother I can be for you. From the minute I learn of your existence, you will be my reason. My reason to push myself, my reason to work hard, my reason to sacrifice, my reason to be even more careful with choosing my words, and my reason to maintain an iron spirit balanced with a gentle heart. I can't promise you an easy life. I can't promise you that you'll never cry yourself to sleep or get so drunk that you can't stand the taste of Jack Daniels from that day forward. I can't promise that the world or the people in it will always be kind to you, but I can promise a lot of things that will make it better. I'll promise them to you now, before your life begins, and I also promise I'll keep my word forever. Promises I promise to remind you that I'm proud of you. Whether it's when you bring home a straight A report card or ...

Today as I was getting off the phone with my grandma, she asked me if I'm tough, and I told her I kind of have to be. Her response was something I won't forget.  "I think Hannah Leigh Tobias is everything she needs to be." I feel like it's fair to say that that kind of closing remark, followed by an "I love you," would be comforting to anyone -- but it hit me particularly hard. I don't know why. Maybe because I'm busier than I've ever been, or maybe because of how emotionally heavy what I do tends to be, or maybe because my brain just seems to be programmed to believe that nothing I'm ever doing is good enough. Maybe because everything lately has been messy. Maybe because it's felt like I haven't had time to sit back and breathe between the long hours of classes, the three different jobs, the chores, the bills and the social plans. Or maybe it's because I just needed to hear it.  If I'm being honest, it's d...

To be honest with you, I think things as simple as getting out of bed in the morning should be celebrated. I think that being human and having the strength to keep trying despite countless failures or disappointments should be celebrated. I think going on first dates again after getting heartbroken should be celebrated. I think Wednesday afternoons should be celebrated just the same as Friday nights. I think that going on a job interview deserves celebration the same way actually getting said job does. I think girls who don't put makeup on every morning and who go to school in sweats should be celebrated the same way supermodels are. I think men who cry should be celebrated for being vulnerable like that rather than shamed for showing weakness. I think in a lot of ways, the secret to being happy is celebrating the things that are normal and routine to us. Why? Because it's easy to get overwhelmed. It's easy to see approaching deadlines and panic. It's easy to feel l...

I'll try to keep it short since it's been more than 30 hours without sleep and since my eyes burn from crying for most of those. I'll keep it brutally honest and real with you because if I was anything else I'd be wasting your time and my own. I've written more than 300 pages worth of emotion out in ink over the last couple days and I'm not even close to done. My hands ache from writing as furiously as I can so I don't forget to make note of everything that's happening in my head right now. I had to buy an entire new set of pens because I kept writing until my fingers were blistered and my pens were dry. I got a little bit drunk and tried to stay distracted, but there's only so much you can do when you don't know what's going on in your own world. If you're someone who's been asking me if I'm okay, I don't know how to answer you in words. Yes, and no, and maybe, and I'm getting better in some moments, and in other mo...

"Isn't that obvious?" a stranger just leaned in and asked me. I'm sitting in a Starbucks with my blog book open, and I'm guessing he had seen the title I'd written at the top of the page in bold letters.  " You are human above all else ." "It's easy to know," I told him. "We all know it. But I feel like it's easy to forget."  And then I grabbed my pens, closed the book, got up and left before he could question me again. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I came up with this title several years ago, before I had even lived the stories that will now go along with it, and I've brought it up when people have asked me about what I intend to write next. I've always wondered when I'd actually be able to publish it.  If you know me, you know that it takes me years to publish some pieces. Most of my blogging is actually just me sitting here alone, writing br...