January 2016 archive

Am I the only One?, Bleah, Erin

Flair

There’s this one chick that comes into my Zumba class whenever she freaking feels like it. She immediately starts talking to everyone as if she knows them (she doesn’t) with lots of bravado (“Yeah, right, what’s up girl, we got dis”). When we dance, she practically turns into a stripper, adding all kinds of wiggles and hip thrusts where they just don’t belong. She watches herself in all the mirrors and shouts things like, “OOOOO GIRL!!” when we’re doing a lot of squats or maybe a long verse on our tippy toes while our calves burn.
I don’t care for her.

flair-guy-office-space-sues

I sincerely hope SOMEONE gets this picture’s significance…

It really took me until today to figure out why she was bothering me so much. I don’t like being a person who is bothered.
Lately I’ve been re-reading one of my favorite parenting books, The Conscious Parent. I noticed over the holidays that Abraham started getting on my nerves (more than usual) and I was snapping and losing my cool far too easily. In reading this book again I was reminded how parents can often add drama to a situation. Not only do we get irritated, but we announce how irritated we are and hurumph or roll our eyes or raise our voices or slam doors. We don’t do anything that’s going to scar our children for life; I’m not talking about that kind of drama. Just the little “exclamation points” we add to a situation to really emphasize the emotion we’re feeling so everyone around us, namely our children, know how ANNOYING THEY ARE. Shefali Tsebary (the author of The Conscious Parent) explains that emotions are normal and HEALTHY. It’s the flair we add onto those feelings that is excessive, unhealthy for all involved, and super-dumb. The other day I looked at Abraham and said, “I’m so irritated.” I didn’t allow myself the frills, though. I just stated the fact that I was irritated and when he asked me what that meant, I told him. I allowed myself to be at my wit’s end with my child and I left it at that. No drama. No flair. “I’m just irritated and I need to be left alone.”
How often do we do the opposite? We add flair to our feelings.
Not only am I mad, but I’m going to YELL!
Not only am I confused, but I’m going to tell everyone that this makes no sense!
Not only am I frustrated with how slow the grocery store line is but I’m going to announce to everyone around me, “I ALWAYS CHOOSE THE WRONG LINE!”
It’s like we have to accentuate our own feelings by enhancing their size and thereby (somehow) making them more valid. When, in fact, being frustrated that the line in the grocery store isn’t moving is fine. It’s acting like a big a-hole about it that isn’t. Can ya just be frustrated, acknowledge you’re frustrated TO YOURSELF, and then move on with life?!
Could you possibly just let your feelings be feelings without all the choreography?!

And then it hit me. The choreography. In the middle of a chapter in a book about parenting, I realized why I didn’t care for Zumba girl. The drama. She added flair onto everything. It was attention-grabbing. It was distracting. It even added discomfort to things like long squats because she was adding to the pain by shouting loudly enough for all of us to hear how much pain SHE was in!
I’ve been doing my best to eliminate drama from my life these past few years, and that includes my own dramatic reactions. I have most definitely not been perfect, but in this practice I’ve noticed the theatrical expressions happening around me are so much more obvious! And so much more BOTHERSOME and I could just SCREAM but I won’t because being annoyed is enough all by itself without any added drama and i’m learning from my own blog right now…
(BTW, Could the Zumba girl just be a really expressive dancer? Yes. But let the blog be what it’s about, ok?)

So that’s going to be my focus. I’m going to have all the feels. I’m just not going to express every. single. feel. with so much flair. I’m going to be gentle with myself, honest with myself, and trust that my own emotions are valid all by themselves. Less drama. Less flair.

 

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Bleah, Erin

The Let-Go Dance

What’s interesting is that I met Bear within weeks of my divorce. He had 7 years prior to meeting me to complete his Let-Go Dance. When he first suggested I might be in the least bit angry over my divorce, I quickly put him in his place. “I’m not angry. I’m not angry at ALL.”
It wasn’t until I met a group of women that now make up my weekly prayer group that I started considering Bear might be right. Six months ago one of them asked me, “Have you ever gotten angry over your divorce?”
“No. I’m not angry at all.”
“You need to get angry,” another quipped.
I just didn’t see it; but I was open to the suggestion of being angry. And an interesting thing happened. In opening up…
I got mad.
Madder than a hatter.
Madder than a wet hen in a tote sac.
Madder than a donkey chewing on bumblebees.
I wrote letters I’d never send, vented my frustrations at Bear, and even spewed it up to God every now and again. It felt like I was never going to be finished being angry.
And then recently…I’m just not as angry.
I’m sad. Super sad. And I didn’t want to feel sad for the next six months! So I prayed that God would get me through the “sad phase” faster than the mad phase so I could continue on with this Let-Go Dance.
As luck would have it, my ex-husband recently sold the house we lived in together. In doing so, he removed boxes and bags of carefully stacked and labelled baby toys that I’d stored away in hopes of using them again someday. Honestly, I’d forgotten they were in the attic until he called. He offered me the opportunity to go through them after he and his fiance moved out, and before the new homeowners moved in. He gave me a key and everything. I gratefully accepted, and as I pulled in the driveway I was washed with a huge wave of grief.
Wow. I’m saying goodbye to my house. My big empty house. Just the way it was the day we moved in.
I stepped in the front door and the smell was the first thing…the first visceral reaction I had as I stepped carefully through all the memory clouds hovering along the floors. I remembered smelling it the day we moved in, I remembered smelling it when I was pregnant and I thought it “smelled bad” all the time. I remembered smelling it the first time I had to come back after we were divorced and she’d moved in; I saw her dirty laundry in the hallway and sucked my stomach up into my throat.
I walked past Abe’s playroom where I used to keep my desk and my wall of old play scripts. I walked through the kitchen and noticed the baby locks still attached to the oven and pantry. The baby locks I applied when I realized my son would begin getting in to everything soon…
I walked by the chandelier I painted, the piece of twine still tied around the ceiling fan I used to tie up sheets to make a fort on Abe’s second birthday.
12597019_10154503617779829_1261910931_oI walked into our old bedroom. All the pictures gone now, of course, but I could still see them. Inside our bathroom, I remembered the day we had the floor re-tiled. I remembered how annoyed he was that I would slide my mirror across the bathroom countertop and leave marks; and why on Earth did that not bother me, too? But when I turned around and looked at the bathtub…that’s when the tears finally puddled over the edges of my eyes. That tub. Where I sat in the evenings with a full, round belly full of Abe. Where I laid and cried and screamed for hours during my never-ending labor over a long weekend. Where I first began bathing Abraham, first in a little mesh bath bed, then with toys and bath books and bubbles when he could sit up. Days of my life can be attributed to that tub; literally days.
I walked upstairs to Abraham’s room, some bird stickers still on the wall and the numbers stickers still hanging on where I stuck them thinking, “Someday he’ll want to know about numbers.” I sat where our rocker used to sit next to Abe’s crib, the same place I nursed Abe everyday at least 5 times, and I stared in the same direction I always did. The neighbors had new trees, and a new firepit in their back yard. The cars going by and the car wash off in the distance looked the same.
Finally, I came back downstairs to the garage where the pile of Abrahams toys sat stacked against the far wall. I began to sift through them, remembering with my bones the vibrating seat (the only place Abe would poop), the johnny jump up Abe spent hours in everyday, the seat that made him fall asleep staring at the little lights, and the exersaucer I used to leave in the bathroom so that I could put him somewhere while I showered. I leaned on the exersaucer and accidentally pushed the musical worms, and out came the song. I would sing it to you if it had words, but it was just a melody. I had to kneel down next to it and lean on the garage floor while I cried. I cried as many of the tears as I could possibly get out listening to that song…the song Abe and I spent our days listening to in that big house…
I realized in that moment, it wasn’t the house I would miss. It wasn’t the marriage or the toys or the thought of never having another baby. What I missed was the opportunity to have the family I wanted for Abe. I wept for the girl who used all of these toys to entertain her son for hours and hours a day, feeling like a failure at every turn as her marriage fell apart. I cried for Abe, that he didn’t get the mom he deserved because she was unprepared and starting to feel like she was in the wrong place. And that I can never go back to those moments in the bathroom with the exersaucer or the living room with the vibrating chair and do them right. I cried for a long time when I realized that.

I packed my car full of Abe toys and pictures, intent on finding a home for each and every 12443804_10154503618314829_1767504065_oone. A better home. I touched the sticky spot above the doorbell on my way out, the spot I intensely stuck a hand-written sign that read “Don’t Ring the Doorbell!” so the dogs wouldn’t bark and wake Abe up. I walked back to my car and looked back one more time. “Thank you for letting me say goodbye. Goodbye, house. I won’t miss you, but I will remember every moment you gave me.”

And so, my Let-Go dance continues…

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Erin, HolyCrap

Click Here To Find Out if I’m Pregnant

Awwww, See? You care about whether or not I have a baby, too! How sweet.

About a year ago, someone asked me if Bear and I were going to have a baby together. Like it’s as easy as grabbing a handle of almond milk from Whole Foods. At the time I gave it a firm N-O and probably swigged directly from a bottle of whiskey.
Then…my cousin had a baby girl.
Then…a girlfriend got pregnant.
Then my other cousin…
I did everything in my power to keep my cool, but all I could think about was a little girl staring up at Bear and whispering, “Daddy?” My ovaries were in OVERDRIVE writing the stories of my future-daughter and I could not find a way to slap the pencils out of their hands. So, I began to consider the possibility of having a baby with Bear. “We’ll have a baby together, but only if it’s a girl!” I joked with our friends secretly knowing for certain I was going to get pregnant and it was going to be a girl.
WE WERE HAVING A GIRL!

 

SOMEDAY!

 

Add a few months to the timeline and I decided to ask Bear if he wanted a baby. Specifically the baby girl I was planning to have. It felt like the right time to take him opinion into consideration…
“Sure. I would never say ‘no’ to a baby with you,” he responded.
There. Perfect. I want a baby girl and Bear wants one, too. Maybe not at desperately as I want one, but enough for him to say that he wouldn’t say no, so…
I waffled back and forth on nearly a daily basis and then…I remembered something. It took me time, a special diet, and a fertility specialist to get pregnant with Abraham. Was I willing to go through all of that again? Admittedly I’ve been much more “regular” since having Abe, so there’s no telling. I might actually be far more fertile than I was in my 20s. It happens! But bottom line, did I want to go back to the specialists and turn into a human pin cushion? No. No, I did not.
On birth control for years, it occurred to me one morning: I’ll just stop taking birth control.
It was the perfect plan. If God wanted me to get pregnant, I would. And if He didn’t, he would hit me with the same issues I had the first go-round. I didn’t even have to MAKE the decision! God would make it for me! THIS IS PERFECT!!!
By December of 2015, I planned to stop taking “the pill” in January and let things ride. We have four bedrooms now. What could possibly go wrong?
Back story: My two cousins and I all had babies within three months of each other, and one had twins. So we currently have four 5-year-olds in the family. Add to that the fact that they each went on to have one more. So we also have two 1-year-olds. 1915355_10154451027909829_7822553141325325037_n
Bear and I went home with Abraham for New Years Eve to see my fam. I was SO excited for all the cousins to be together. Three boys and one girl in the older category, two gorgeous little girls in the younger category. My first mission? To hold one of the baby girls. Forever.

1724020_10153134710256017_6022965351641469677_nAs soon as we walked in I picked up the youngest cousin and she giggled. She smiled. She even snuggled me. My ovaries were in overdrive, and that little band from the NicodermCQ commercials set up on the coffee table and started singing, “I just want to celebrate…” Bear watched me falling more and more in love with this little person and, admittedly, didn’t bat an eye. I think the thought of a little girl melted his heart just the tiniest bit, right at the edges. This all felt more and more right.
As the day went on, the cousins got restless. Hungry. A little snotty. One started to cry. Another kinda punched the other one. But the little ones. Oh, they were so delightful. So sweet. And when one of them started crying, I asked what could be wrong?
“She’s had an ear infection for like a month. She hasn’t slept. Neither have we,” my cousin responded.
“Oh, I thought you meant mine,” my other cousin responded. “She’s fussy, too. Everyone always said the third ‘surprise’ baby is supposed to be the easy baby. Not the case…”
“No?” I asked. “She’s not easy? Doesn’t she sleep?”
“She did for a while. Not anymore,” my other cousin said. I started to look at my other cousin. Like, really look at her. She was…exhausted. Disheveled. I wasn’t sure she’d showered….lately.
I started to take a step back and look at the whole scene. Everyone was tired. They were sick of each other. Of course they handed their babies to me when I walked in. I was rested. And dressed. And awake. And I was excited to see their babies.
I kept my spirits up, but I started wondering if maybe another baby was not a great idea. I must have said the words “another baby” out loud, because…
“Another baby?” my cousin asked.
“Baby?” her husband asked. And then, while washing a bottle in the sink with his hands, his eyes laser-beamed straight into mine, and with the seriousness of an FBI agent, quietly and without emotion he uttered, “Don’t have a baby. Never have a baby. Don’t. Don’t have more kids.” I wasn’t sure if he was secretly calling out for help or if this was truly just a dark and genuine warning. I stared back into his eyes for several seconds, our gaze locked while he continued washing the bottle without moving his head. Eventually I think I nervously looked away, or maybe Bear offered me a leftover Christmas cookie. Either way, message received.
Message. Received.
Later on that evening during dinner with four 5-year-olds and two 1-year-olds, someone off-handedly asked if Bear and I wanted kids, “NO.”
I might have interrupted the question with my answer.
“No, huh?” Bear chuckled.
Somehow I think Bear always knows when I’m about to make a bad decision, but also knows that I’ll figure it out before I actually do damage, so he’s mainly just spending our time together waiting for me realize what I’m about to do.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said. “We really enjoy our freedom. And sleep. And…life. Together.”

So, no. I am not pregnant. And unless there is a real act of God, it is unlikely that I will be. If I could get pregnant, be pregnant, have the baby, and then hire a full-time nanny and night-nurse, I would DEFINITELY have another one. But until that is a position that can be filled by someone who is paid in legos, it’s unlikely.

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Am I the only One?, Bear, Love

When you know…

IMG_4261Today is the two year anniversary of our first date. I wrote about it last year, that day I nearly discounted some really “cocky” guy. And since then, Bear asked me to marry him, I said yes, and we bought a house (with two surgeries, two moves, and two new jobs in between…). While chatting with my girlfriend today, I was reminded of that old annoying sentiment, “When you know, you know…”
Now, I’m not claiming to know anything God doesn’t know. And I’m not claiming that a bolt of lightening struck me and left “IT WILL BE DIFFERENT THIS TIME” on my forehead when Bear asked me to marry him. I’m 34-years-old and I’m about to be on my second marriage. The US Census reports that an average of 60% of second marriages fail.
Yeah. Hi.

60%.

I’m a statistics kind of a gal. I like to know my odds of winning the Powerball and my odds of falling off a cruise ship and my odds of living past 70 based on my family history. That looming 60% definitely catches my attention. So, being the human that I am, I do have to look myself in the mirror occasionally and ask myself, “What makes this time any different?!”
All I can say is, when you know, you know…

I know that Bear chose me. We didn’t just date long enough for him to feel obligated to propose to me. I didn’t ask him to ask me. I didn’t even know he was planning on it.
I know that I chose Bear. I decided when we moved in together that I wasn’t leaving, and that choice was made not out of fear or desperation, but out of a certain maturity I didn’t have 10 years ago.
I know that he makes me madder than a wet cat. He makes my blood boil like no one can. And in a way, I like that. He triggers something in me that no one on the planet ever has, and that makes me learn and grow because of it.
I know that he loves me harder than anyone ever has. It’s relentless love. And I know that I love him so much it’s almost frustrating sometimes.
I know that I really can’t even explain the amount of intangible points that make this the person I want to grow old with…

It’s at this point in my life that I think compatibility, physical attraction, and common interests are nice, but they don’t predict much. After all, I never would have picked Bear out of a line-up. I am positive, though, that something far bigger chose him for me. I stuck around long enough to figure out what God was doing, and it was the best decision I ever made. Whenever we get married, January 14 will always be the day we just knew.

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Am I the only One?, Erin

Bikini Shopping in January (or “What am I looking at?”)

So, it’s January. And let’s just say…
I’m a little “fluffy.”
I’ve got a “winter coat.”
I “ate a lot of bread.”
And so, really, what better time to go on a cruise and wear a bathing suit for three days?

tumblr_m78x8uO99n1qip4o0o1_r1_1280Instead of humiliating myself in public, I decided this time I would order a crap ton of bathingsuits offline and try them all on in the comfort of my own home. And knowing full well that I would probably not look the way I wanted to look, I prepared myself. I ate really well for a week, worked out like a beast, and drank plenty of water. (What? It’s always worked before?!) I tried on the first one. I looked in the mirror and said, “Oh.”
I think I even said it out loud.
“Yeah. Oh. Ok. So…this is different.”
That week of killing it didn’t do a damn thing. It would appear that I now have lower back fat? And the fluff on my belly didn’t budge, not even an inch. Nevertheless, I kept staring at it. “It” being my body. I just kept looking at it and thinking, What am I looking at? What is happening here?!
It’s not that I’m upset, per say, or that I’m overweight. Sure, I’m longing for my pre-Abe twenty-something year old body. But before those of you who are older than me start the, “Just you wait until you 40, 50, 60, etc.,” please remember that this is my first time as an adult really seeing my body differently because of nothing more than age. I didn’t just give birth. I didn’t go on a crazy sugar binge over Christmas. So I’m not unhappy that this is my body. I’m just sort of…realizing this is my body.
I vividly remember one of those makeover episodes of Oprah years ago. As young woman after young woman was given a figure-flattering outfit, Oprah pumped her fists and recited a quote I have never forgotten:
“Oh, how I regret not having worn a bikini. If anyone young is reading this, go, right this minute, put on a bikini, and don’t take it off until you’re thirty-four.” -Nora Ephron
Whenever I used to feel bad about my body, I’d think, You know what? I will regret not wearing this bikini when I’m 34. I’m going to wear the hell out of this bikini!
Yesterday I realized…fuck.
I’m 34.

Could I just work out consistently and eat right? Well, I kinda do. This is what I’m saying, y’all. I’m doing “all the things” and I still don’t really understand this body. And I won’t be that woman who says, “I’m gonna love my body because my body is worth loving!” It’s not that that’s not true; it’s just that I can’t honestly say it. All I can really say about my body is…
Oh. Yeah. So…this is different.
Am I going to wear the bikini? Yeah. I am. Because it’s a cruise ship with a bunch of people I’ll never see again. (And Bear thinks I’m sexy in a banana costume, so that’s a major plus.) But will I consider investing in a one-piece for next summer? Yeah…I think I’m starting outgrow bikini season.

 

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Am I the only One?, Bear, Erin

Unemployed. Twice.

If you’ve been playing along, you know one week after we closed on our beautiful, perfect, forever home, Bear was very unexpectedly let go from his job.
What you don’t know is that within a DAY of losing that job, he lined up another job. He had an interview, a budget meeting, the good ol’ HR “What are your strengths and how do you feel about confrontation?” meeting, and he was on his way through the shortest unemployment period in all of history.
One week after that, the upper-upper-upper management at that company (I envision them on blue velvet thrones with brandy snifters and complaints about “the help”) decided that they no longer wanted to fill the vacant position in their company in exchange for lower overhead.
Effectively, Bear lost two jobs in two weeks.
I had what you might refer to as a very slight and understated breakdown on the floor. Not at all messy.
When I wrote the blog about Bear losing his job, and then subsequently went blog-missing for 3 weeks, we’d just learned of him losing the second job. What was a non-story was now a MAJOR story and we were staring down Christmas without any idea if 2016 would even offer up a viable income to pay for our new house. (Thank the LORD I am one of those freaks who buys her Christmas presents in November.)

Except for one thing…

In the parking lot of job #2, on the way inside for that HR interview, Bear was introduced to a local business owner. They exchanged pleasantries and the interaction seemed like it was ending until Fritz Von Interview (not his real name) asked, “You worked at the All Family-All The Time company (not it’s real name), right?”
“Yeah. I was just let go.”
“Well, I’m looking to make some changes. You interested in a conversation?” Fritz asked.
Bear, on his way to an HR MEETING for his NEW JOB, initially thought no. But his better judgement stuck a pin in his backside and after he lunged forward awkwardly at Fritz (that didn’t happen), he responded, “Sure. I may have another position, but there is no contract so I’d love to talk.”
Two days later he was told there would be no job at job #2, and three days after that, Bear and Fritz sat down in a local breakfast joint to chat. They discussed his position at All Family-All The Time and what he wanted to be doing in the field. They discussed work-styles, schedules, and personality-types. And by the end of the meeting, Fritz suggested they meet after Christmas to decide if they could reach a financial agreement.
Christmas came and went. And early on a Monday morning, Bear got a text from Fritz asking if he could meet for breakfast again.

This was it.

This was our opportunity for employment in 2016, possibly without seeing a large difference in income.

All the eggs? GET IN THE BASKET.

un-employedBear called me after that meeting and casually informed me that he had the job, it was for enough money, and probably a better position lifestyle-wise than the other job ever would have been. What seemed like two complete and utter devastating blows turned out to be a potentially brilliant opportunity for Bear to work with a company until he retires.

Over the summer, Bear and I purchased a cruise trip set for January 8; a sort of gift to ourselves for surviving the holidays and 2015. Little did we know, it would be a celebration just prior to Bear starting his new job. With each of these insane life-downs I’ve had over the past few years, I understand more and more that there really is a plan, a purpose to it all. And most of the time, I don’t get to know the plan in advance. It’s why so few people older than myself gasp and gape when they hear things like, “Bear lost his job.” It’s because they already know there’s a plan and that things work out…All this crazy and more has put me right where I need to be. I calmed down a little bit each time we hit a new “crisis”, because really? If we can survive divorces, a broken leg, a batty landlord, and a layoff right before Christmas, we really can handle most of what life hands us.

And so we are gearing up for our cruise this weekend and I even went bikini shopping.
In January.
And I’d like to suggest to you that this is a terrible idea…

(P.S. A HUGE thank you to so many people who asked for Bear’s resume, passed his name around, and even tried to set up interviews for him. I’m really grateful to know a community of loving go-getters exists out there!)

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Am I the only One?, Erin

Context – A New Year

This month, January of 2016, marks my 7th year of blogging. Since I began, I moved across the country, bought a house, struggled with infertility, had a baby boy, rediscovered the theatre (my first passion), got separated, got divorced, moved in with two roommates, met Bear, broke my femur, moved in with Bear, got ENGAGED to Bear, and bought another house. At times I had LOTS of friends. Other times I felt nearly alone. I found God, I lost Him, I found Him again…My life started, ended, and began again in 7 short years.

On the treadmill today, while I contemplated those 7 years, I decided to pop in a Pastor Furtick podcast (I say “pop in” because back in my day when you wanted to listen to something you popped a tape in the player, for all of you born after 1990). His Christmas Eve sermon was all about context and he hilariously reminded us all that we’ve lost the context of Christmas:
All was not calm, nor bright, when Jesus was born. He was a baby and he was screaming his head off.
Our savior wasn’t born to two loving parents. He was born to a virgin who had to convince her not-even-husband that even though that baby wasn’t his, she never cheated on him.
Poor Joseph was out there in a shed with a bunch of animals agreeing to father a child that was admittedly not his but he was accepting because he wanted to trust Mary’s word.

The point? People tend to forget the context of the “miracle” of Christmas. They forget that it actually included some seriously brutal and scandalous stuff. So much so that when they examine their own lives, they cover up the parts that seem less-than-savory. In wanting to seem more like Jesus, they forget what Jesus was actually like. He was born into a mess, he dealt with messes all day long, and he died brutally nailed to a plank of wood. (And you think your day was bad…)
People also forget to consider they might not know the context of other peoples’ lives. They flip off some a$$hole in a Tercel who cut them off in traffic without for even an INSTANT considering the context. Sure, the Tercel guy could just be an a$$hole, end of context. Or, the Tercel guy could be rushing home to a wife who’s in labor or to a job that he’s about to lose. He could SERIOUSLY use some grace and forgiveness.
Or the context of Floyd’s life. He works with you and is constantly trying to outdo you, one-up you, win, win, win. Floyd is always on your tail or beating you to the punch or saying “just the right thing” to the boss before you get the chance to. He makes you angry and insecure and if life just DIDN’T INCLUDE FLOYD, everything would be fine. But when you dig in and get the context, you find out through another cubicle-dwelling friend that Floyd lost his father at a young age and has terribly low self-esteem because his mother never took an interest and so he is CONSTANTLY trying to prove how necessary he is. When you consider that all Floyd wants is to feel important because he never has, you begin to see things differently (if you’re a person with a heart).
Do I think that means you ought to slow down for the a$$hole drivers or really get to know all your co-workers so you can be fully informed and full of grace all the time?
No. Because you’re not Jesus.
But I do think if we each, even just a little bit, decided to try and learn the context of a situation prior to forming an opinion of it, we might see other people just trying to survive the human experience the same way we are.

If you jumped into reading my blog at any point during these past 7 years, you would have met an entirely different person during any given post. There are periods of time during my blogging that still make me cringe when I think about them; I definitely can’t re-read some parts. My ideas and ways of life have changed again and again (the way they’re supposed to) and if you know the context of most of those changes, you probably think I’m always doing the best I can. If you don’t know the context, you would think I’m an opinionated flip-flopper who can’t seem to get her shit together. Rose-colored glasses are a bad idea. But instead of “staying positive” or “thinking the best”, try instead just getting some more information.

My New Year’s Resolution this year is to be a human being. A real, fully-alive human being who has feelings and flaws and all that shit that makes her feel vulnerable.

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