Dear 2019, I really didn’t want to do this; write a post reflecting on this past year. In all honesty, the last few months of 2019 were really fucking dreadful. It’s been tough to look back on all of the wonderful things 2019 showed me since tragedy struck my brother in late October, extending its tentacles outward onto the whole of my family. But, clinging to the optimist that I (was) am, I will lean into the 2020 idea of having clear vision, and spend some time looking back. While I am happy to admit that I met a few of the intentions I set for myself in 2019: To live the year with resolve, to make amends where I can and to let go where I cannot. There were a few areas in which I fell short. I did a lot of letting go, but in doing so let a little too much of myself go as well....
on loss, despair, and finding hope in healing | an open letter to 2018
Oh, 2018, what a blissful and terrible nightmare dream you were. In January you took my nephew from us and really set the tone for what the year’s focus would be (loss). Massive fucking amounts of loss. Yet still – and this is proof of just how fucked up you were, 2018 – I am grateful. Humbled. Yeah, a little humiliated, too, but mostly? I’m filled with gratitude. You shattered me, but you lifted me up, too. You brought me so many remarkable experiences (thank you for those). In taking as much as you did, though, you broke me completely. For a long time, I thought you had broken me irreparably, but that is not that case (you knew that all along, didn’t you?). In my destruction I found the greatest strength I’ve ever known, and have finally – finally! – allowed myself to meet myself – and she is beautiful. Intelligent. Caring....
on embracing fear, pursuing my legend, and finding strength in the unlikeliest of places
“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” –The Alchemist I’ve written about fitness before. Four years ago, almost to the day, I admitted that I loathed my body. That I hated what it looked like, and how I was complacent in my disdain – too afraid to do anything about how I was feeling. It took me a long time to realize that my complacency, and subsequent failure in achieving my “ideal body” wasn’t fear of getting fit, but that in getting fit I’d realize that the hatred I felt towards my body was a symptom of a bigger issue and a deeper fear, the truth of which wouldn’t fully surface until two years later in the summer of 2016. As women it’s easy for us to subconsciously place the solution to all of our problems upon our appearance. As if losing...
grief is a faster teacher than joy | on depression, the pain of discovery, and finding my true self
The funny thing about grief is that no one really explains it to us. Save for the Five Stages we are told we must falter and trip our way through, we don’t really know anything about what profound grief can and will do to or for us. It’s an experience and emotional endeavor that we can’t begin to fathom until after it has wholly enveloped us. We see it clearly once we’ve clawed ourselves out from under it. The asshole that is Grief cannot – and will not stand to – be fully understood until we have finally moved through it. In all of my wisdom and intelligence, it never occurred to me that grief doesn’t only show up when someone dies. I understand now the disastrous effects of my naïveté. As it turns out, grief cleverly meanders its way into our lives when we least expect. Grief, like joy or happiness...
