Evolve or remain.

Somewhere along the line, I made the decision to stop accepting half-love and half-assed anything. From myself, from the people around me, from the life I'm determined to cultivate. It never was enough, and it never was going to be. I got tired of trying to force things to be worth more than they were. I got tired of wasting patience on things that I shouldn't have ever had to wait for.  I know. That sounds like a very easy decision to have to make- but it has been the hardest. The best, but the hardest. It has been the source of bridges I've had to burn, and walls that I've built up and torn down again over and over. It has been the core of what keeps my hands moving across empty notebook pages at obscene morning hours while the world around me rests peacefully. It has been the border between me saying "goodnight" and "goodbye," even to the people I thought were the closest to me.  It has been wild, and awful, and messy, and beautiful, and sometimes...

Just on my drive to work, I pay close attention to humanity. I always have. People and their stories have always fascinated me. There's an older gentleman strolling through my neighborhood, alone - and part of me is wishing I didn't have to clock in so I could keep him company. I'm sure he's got a lot on his mind, and possibly nobody to share it with at home. Two blocks down there's a young woman tending to flower beds in her front yard, in old jeans and a distressed t-shirt, wiping sweat from her forehead and I'm wondering how long she's been working. I wonder why she chose to plant the flowers that she did, or if those were even her choices in the first place. Maybe the gardening is a chore to her, but I'm hoping it's something that brings her comfort of some kind, too. I don't know anything about her, but I feel like she deserves that. There's a team of young kids playing soccer in a schoolyard not far from my house. Cars are lining the st...

About a week ago, for the first time, I painted my nails hot pink. And understandably, that means nothing to you. But to me it meant a lot, because it was something different. Something out of character for me, and a small little step beyond my comfort zone. That's something I'm really working hard on right now - going beyond the limits of what's familiar to me and really allowing myself to grow through the discomfort that comes along with it. I've spent long enough fearing change and not being confident enough in myself to embrace all of my own chaos - I'm over all of that now. I'm ready to feel better and be better.  Very recently I got out of a relationship I had been in for far too long. I needed to leave, in the interest of protecting my mental health... but that didn't make it any less hard. Yes, it was my own idea to get out, and yes, I cried over it more than I care to admit. There was a lot that went into my making that decision, and a lot of emotio...

1. When I was in second grade, my teacher had set up a "store" in her classroom. She handed out fake money to us when we behaved well and punished bad behavior by taking it away. Every so often she'd set out the bins with items we could purchase using the money we had saved up. At the end of the year, we were encouraged to spend the last of our money on whatever we could buy - but I didn't want anything. I didn't want anything, but I had saved about $2,000 and when I handed all my extra fake bills to her on the last day, she looked at me like I was out of my mind. The truth was, I didn't need anything or expect to get anything out of all the money I had saved up. I had just done what was expected of me as a student, and even at 7 or 8 years old I didn't think that required a reward. But that day stuck with me, because my teacher went above and beyond. She fumbled around in her desk for a while before pulling out a large bag of M&M's and handing me ...

There's been sooooooo much about this year that I never could've expected- and that's putting it lightly. I didn't expect so many brutally intimate conversations about personal battles. I didn't expect so much change to come from them, either.  I didn't expect to break a rib just a week or so after the semester started, or to have a doctor's note handed to me telling me I shouldn't practice yoga for the time being. I also didn't expect my doctor, immediately after diagnosing me, to ask me if I write. I laughed. I knew he was asking if I was into the whole journalism thing like my mama. "Ha! No," I told him. "I have a personal blog and I journal, but no, I couldn't get into that kind of writing." He looked at me for a minute, smiled, and said something I haven't forgotten since. "Hey, keep making them proud." I'm still not completely sure who he meant when he said, "them." Maybe my parents, m...

I never thought that hearing people say, "See you tomorrow!" would be something I'd regret taking for granted. I guess I never thought I'd see a day when something that normal would change. As little a thing as that seems, there are no words for how much I want it back. Because now, when I leave the office or say goodbye to anyone, all I can say or hear is, "See you when I see you." It's weird, more than anything. Sad, too. I guess Joni Mitchell was right when she sang the words, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone," in her song, "Big Yellow Taxi" that's been in my head for more than a week now while the world around me seems to have changed completely . You'd think that as an introvert, I'd be loving a government order to stay in my apartment and avoid contact with others at all costs. You'd think I'd loving being able to wear leggings and no makeup to work because work is now something I ...

It's hurt to write lately and if I'm honest with you, it's hurt to do most things. 2020 has been far from kind. Kinda feel like in the last three months, I've lived the whole year and then some. At the beginning of the year I promised myself that 2020 would be better, but by the the middle of January I had lost a job and applied for another one that I ended up not getting. Two weeks in a row during the month of February I found myself in the emergency room, barely able to get a deep breath, and ended up finding out it was all because I had a separated/fractured rib. So when March got here, I had high hopes that things would start looking up. Every morning for two months or so, my grandparents and I texted each other a countdown of the days until I'd be catching an afternoon flight to see them for the first time in years. For weeks leading up to that day, I was so excited to finally be getting that chance that I pre-packed as much of my suitcase as I could. Ev...