shadows and light.

Sometimes, I feel as though I am fading into gray. I am stuck, watching my body slowly turn from the outside in, the ashes painstakingly taking over until I feel like I am suffocating on the shadows of my soul. It feels like I am disappearing, dissipating into a nothingness that leaves no reminders, no question as to whether I was actually ever here.

I am being consumed, by this nothingness.

By this feeling, that I cannot feel anymore.

This need to be apathetic, to be uncaring, is strong.

It is a protective measure, a measure of disassociating, that is easier and safer and--

cold.

It is lonely, the process of disappearing, The letting go of colors, the attempt to make ourselves smaller and smaller until there is nothing left.

But we do it anyway. Because the alternative is to feel, to love--

to break.

to fall.

to hurt.

To be afraid of losing.

And we must not, at all costs, experience loss.

But we do anyway.

We lose ourselves.

We stop participating in our own lives, we stop feeding our souls. We starve ourselves as a way of preparation, convincing our hearts that we don't need anything but the necessary to survive.

We fall asleep, I think.

We lay down and say, please, please please don't make me take anymore.

I don't want to see anymore.

I can't hear anymore.

So let me be here, alone.

Let me go.

Let me drift through this life unaware and unharmed, let me be free from the responsibility of sorrow.

But we cannot.

Jesus wept.

So do we.

Jesus felt.

So do we.

And we must not, must not lose heart.

We must not lose courage.

We must not let ourselves turn to stone, let ourselves willingly numb and dull and disappear into the night.

We must feel.

We must remain human.

We must love with everything we got, we must hold on to one another in the dark. We must reach out and reach in and pull pull pull for the light.

We must not stop dreaming.

Not stop hoping.

And while we may feel as though the darkness will surely, surely win, we must remember that it has not. 

That for every ounce of us that has been taken over by the dark, there is an ounce more that has been saved by the light.

That it is as true as ever that even the tiniest spark can illuminate the night sky.

We are that light.

And we are still burning, still fighting, still finding a way to breathe in the air to keep ourselves running.

We may feel the night.

It may be well worn and easily traveled.

But we have not let go.

So hold on.

Hold on and push back and believe, believe believe in the light.

It is yours to hold.

Let it make a home in your heart.

The shadows may still be there.

But without light, there would be no shadows.

It hasn't gone out yet.

identity and comparison.

“There are no norms. All people are exceptions to a rule that doesn’t exist.” 
― Fernando Pessoa

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t myself. I think we all wish this, at times. We wish we were smarter, more motivated. We wish that we were prettier, more full of grace. Stronger, happier, healthier. We wish. We dream. We sink.

We drop, farther and farther down, until we no longer know who we are anymore. We spend time trying to be someone else, trying to be anything else but the person we are afraid we are. And in this, we know what we do not want to be. We fight, frantically, to avoid what we feel is inevitable. We shrink away from our past, away from our shadows. We worry that we are not enough. That we will never be enough—or worse, that we will be too much.

We compare and contrast, we poke and we prod, we shame and we hide and we hope that we can pull it together enough to be acceptable to someone.

We spend so much time trying not to be ourselves.

We look around and say let me be this or let me be that, but please oh please, do not let me be me.

And I wonder, when it became a bad thing to simply be.

To let ourselves fall apart.

To say, I’m glad you’re this, but I’m that.

We try to force ourselves into performances and cultures and groups and is it possible to be yourself in a world that is asking you to categorize your soul?

I am ME. I don’t fit anywhere or belong to anyone or know who exactly it is I am becoming.

I am here, trying to figure it out.

I’m going to meet people who don’t like it and people who are uncomfortable and people who tell me 

I’m doing it all wrong.

I’m also going to meet people who are telling me I’m doing it all right.

But I am learning, to listen.

To listen to the small, growing voice inside of me and the big big God who tells me be still.

To stop striving.

To remember that I am I am I am enough.

I am changing.

I am growing.

And I am loved.

I do not have to be anyone.

I do not have to wish I was different.

I am messy and cranky and tired and loud and even a little bit mean sometimes.

And I am hopeful and joyful and compassionate and full of love some other times.

I am becoming.

And that is OK.

So I am learning to rest.

To stop the tug on my heart that is screaming SHAME and DISAPPOINTMENT and FEAR.

To stop trying so damn hard to fix myself.

I am learning, instead, to open my hands and my heart and whisper—you are OK.

I am OK.

I am being held.

I can let go.

I can hold on.

I can rest knowing my twenty-six year old self is exactly who she should be—

Herself. 

bitterness and grace.

I write about fear and love and emotional vulnerability because those things are easy for me. They are getting a lot of attention in the media, and the new thing is to be brave in our feelings. And I think this is great. We are making space to view courage differently, we are saying that it's OK not to be perfect and all glued together. We are making room for community and reaching out and holding on to each other when the going gets tough.

I am trying, to connect in this way. I am trying, to be OK. And I am finding, that it is very very hard.

Because what I am learning as I feel the fear and do it anyway is that under my fear is a load of bitterness and rage.

Yup, I said it.

Bitterness and rage.

I want to be the "love" person. I want to be the gracious and compassionate, the hugger. The one who everyone needs and everyone adores, the one whom not a soul has something bad to say about.

I want to be wholesome and steady and pure.

And instead, I find myself dirty and cranky and side-eyeing the crap out of everyone who comes near me.

I find myself jumping when someone leans in for a hug unexpectedly, and cringing when neediness rears its head. I hear myself saying things I don't like, doing things I don't respect. I wake up in a bed of self-loathing and regret.

I wake up stuck.

I've seemed to have lost the meaning of grace, for both myself and others. It's like I've misplaced it, or like it never existed to begin with. I've seen grace, I know what it looks like. I would even say that much grace has been extended to me, with open and forgiving hands.

It's just that I haven't managed to accept it.

We know grace. We are supposed to live it. And I think I practice it, or at least try to. I know that I can have compassion for the hurting, love for those in need.

But at the end of the day, grace has not found a steady home in my heart.

It lingers, at the door, waiting patiently to be let in. And I, like a faithful hostess, refuse the company until I can have the place a little more together.

Being open and vulnerable and honest is hard, but actually believing that you are still valuable in the midst of that is harder.

It's impossible, sometimes.

To fully acknowledge and lean into your own goodness.

To believe in the power of grace.

Because we say we do, but then delegate our self-love to a corner and tell it in so many words that is is not welcome here.

That we are not worthy.

That our bad stuff outweighs the good.

We tell ourselves this over an over, and we tell ourselves that we are incapable of change.

That we are not loving enough, happy enough, stable enough.

That we are not enough to make someone stay, but surely enough to make someone leave.

And we buy into this story until it becomes the only one in our head, until we think it's the only one worth telling.

But it's not.

It's the wrong part of the story.

The real story is that love is not performance-laden.

The real story is the one of grace.

The grace we are refusing to accept for ourselves, but quickly hand to others.

Or, the grace we haven't internalized, and thus cannot externalize it to others.

And this makes us bitter. Angry even.

But today, today it must stop.

We must know grace to know our self-worth.

We must believe that we are accepted and loved, we must know this first before we can give it to others.

We cannot make others feel that which we have not experienced.

Grace.

Don't give up on it.

Don't give up on yourself.

You are worthy despite your bitter and aching heart.

And grace?

It's waiting, just outside your door.