HAPPY 5TH BIRTHDAY

I’m surprised more than anything that this has happened so quickly. Five years ago I was 16, I’m pretty sure I had braces and thick black square glasses, I didn’t have a phone or a plan for any of this, just a camera and the drive to make something tangible. 

I still write and write often, and even if not all of it ends up on here, these essays that mark the passage of time are something that I know I will cherish. A small little window into the inner workings of my mind, and all of the lessons and all of the changes that have happened since my eleventh year of high school. 

If the next five years bears any resemblance to the last I know that I have not got a clue what is in store for me. That I can plan and hope and prepare, but this life is not predictable and at any moment there could be a new bend in the road. For now I am happy being here and soaking up all the lessons and experiences I can while in this moment. 

I honestly feel like somehow this marks a new chapter with these five years done and gone. Maybe it’s all of the change and new strides I’ve taken in the couple months of this year alone, but it feels a bit like a new beginning. And in the grand scheme of things, in building this life, there will be hard lessons learned in these next five years too, but I do know that the last five years has prepared in me someone who is fully capable of tackling whatever should come my way. 

Oh the things you will do

One of the most exhilarating things about growing older is doing things you know would have scared you to death when you were younger. Or 2 years ago. Or 3 months ago. 

Not only knowing that you CAN do them but that you're actually pretty freaking capable of doing them. And that you're actually that much closer to being a real freaking adult. 

This semester has been one of so many firsts. One of so many moments where I decided I must go on despite my fears. 

For someone who's struggled with anxiety and depression doing even small things like getting out of bed and eating and showing up makes the things that are really only small things to other people like going to the school gym or doing that presentation or going to that interview, seem like really big accomplishments. And to know that you're capable of not only getting up, eating and showing up, but all these other things too? Priceless. To know that you are capable of so much more than your little mind as it lays through mornings of doubts and of deep lows could ever comprehend, is just so comforting. 

That someone who is frozen in fear and enveloped in the thoughts of all she cannot do, can in fact do a whole freaking whack-load of amazing and exhilarating things? That's pretty cool. That's almost adult-like there my friends. 

And sometimes you surprise yourself with fearlessness and sometimes you must continue on despite your fear. However, it doesn't ever diminish what little you did accomplish because the difference is you could not do that yesterday. So that moment of exhilaration and of completion and satisfaction is so so worth a little celebrating. 

So let's celebrate. Celebrate small accomplishments, fearlessness, courage in the face of fear and the art of becoming who we're supposed to be. Because that's all growing older really is, isn't it? 

YIN & YANG

And then I just need a hug Not so you can hold me together, I'm pretty good at that myself now Not so I can talk about it, I was never really good at talking But to tell you In a shaky embrace, that my heart's bleeding.

And it was at that moment, Where thoughts of time & tomorrow flickered excitedly behind closed lids And any chance of rest was vainly sought. Life was good.

17 things for

2. My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.  | Maya Angelou

3. Never be afraid to raise your voice for honest and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world would do this, it would change the Earth.  | William Faulkner

4. No, is a full sentence.

5. You shouldn't try to stop everything from happening. Sometimes you're supposed to feel awkward. Sometimes you're supposed to be vulnerable in front of people. Sometimes it's necessary because it's all part of you getting to the next part of yourself, the next day.  | Cecelia Ahem

6. When the world and your mind tells you to settle, you stand up an yell "I am worth more than a timeline!" Because beauty is found in every season, and one does not demand the flowers to bloom until spring has begun...Wait and grow, the sun will come in due time, and you will bloom and show the world your worth.  | T.B. LaBerge

7. If it is both terrifying and amazing then you should definitely pursue it.  | erada

8. Hardships often prepare ordinary people, for an extraordinary destiny...  | C.S. Lewis

9. Sometimes it's okay if the only thing you did today was breathe.

10. It is not easy...to wait. Waiting is what the hunter does, and the poet and the slugger. He waits for the moment of inevitability and fate and then he swings, or shoots, or takes up the pen to put down a line. They don't teach us to wait in America; they teach us to grab. But waiting is what we do when we are looking for something beautiful, when we are looking for an end to our sorrow. Nothing is infinite in life, not even sorrow.  | Cary Tennis

11. You won't do it at the right time. You'll be late. You'll be early. You'll get re-routed. You'll get delayed. You'll change your mind. You'll change your heart. It's not going to turn out the way you thought it would. It will be better.  | Kate Moller

12. Exist on your own terms.

13. Accept yourself. Love yourself just as you are. Your finest work, your best movements, your joy, peace, and healing come when you love yourself. You give a great gift to the world when you do that. You give others permission to do the same: to love themselves. Revel in self love. Roll in it. Bask in it, as you would the sunshine.  | Melodie Beattie

14. You are entirely up to you.

15. Sometimes, I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.  | Mary Oliver

16. Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.  | C.S. Lewis

17. Write it in your heart that everyday is the best day of the year.

*  *  *

Remembering these things as we walk across the threshold of the old year and welcome in the new -- here is to 2017 and all that it will bring

Pinterest Inspiration // 12

1. @babeskills 2. Mark Appleton 3. Habitually Chic 4. @andicsinger 5. @lucidlines 6. Unknown

To say that this semester has been hard would be an understatement. 
Both personally and school-wise I do not think that I have ever been so drained. I am eternally grateful for friends that make it somehow more bearable.

There's something magical about this time of year in the city that makes my heart sing a little. The lights, the music, the hustle and bustle, gift-giving and decorations, it all just feels a little like a movie. But I have always been a romantic that way. 

I'm doing my best to try to soak all of it in, usually in-between study sessions and grocery runs (so romantic). 

I've been struggling with the notion of home lately. I think it is something that I have continually struggled with over my uni career, but it just seems as if some of the dynamics have shifted since then. It's not that unusual. Things change over time and I knew that. I guess I just thought they would change more on my own terms. But that's not really how things work is it?

I read a quote the other day that basically said, "we don't write to be understood, we write to understand" and I couldn't help but think that that perfectly sums up the feeling I get... It's somewhere in-between a tightening in my chest a sort of panicky restless feeling that only really goes away when I both feel like I understand what's been happening inside my head and when I feel like I've sufficiently wrote enough to be understood. But first and foremost it's for my own understanding. 

So if home is where the heart is I think I might be a little doomed. I don't know where my heart is half the time. It flickers back and forth between old and new, familiar and day-to-day, and I'm not sure if that makes me lost or just a wanderer. 

A wayfarer. 

It sounds romantic...I can assure you it's not all the time. 

It's exciting. It's displaced. It's comfortable and uncomfortable. It's content and unsatisfying. It's all these things separately and somehow all at once. 

What I do know is that this year has pretty much hit me with all that its got and I feel a little beaten down and a little exhausted and I'm not sure how much more I can take before things start to take a bitter turn as they are want to do. I know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel here somewhere. Christmas break is near. But I'm starting to taste a bit of it's familiar acidity on my tongue. I'm trying to ignore it as best as I can and keep my head up. Mind over matter, you know? 

With that said here is a bit of inspiration for you, and me:

1. Hell yeah.
2. Doesn't London at Christmastime just sound wonderful to you?
3. The first snow.
4. I wish I could fill up my wrists with dainty bracelets, some pretty not-the-week-after-finals nails would be nice too.
5. Elegant? Dainty? Yes. Timeless? I don't know...I think I'd like to find out though.
6. Always a good idea.

I'm sitting here in a busy coffee shop reading about hyphens in The Copyeditor's Handbook and I realized ... I don't give a shit about hyphen's. Seems obvious, but if you knew how many exceptions and rules and preferences were bundled up in the use of a single small line I think you would understand. It might be bit of a surprise then that I am crap at grammar.  It frustrates me endlessly and is somehow -- however obvious -- a required or at least a preferable attribute for someone in the business of writing. And ironically it's made me write less as a result. 

Except right now as the author argues his case on compound adverbs and the different meaning between "too readily" and "too-readily" I realized that despite this insecurity of mine, I would much rather be writing right now then trying to process the plethora of rules in place for a simple line. And not something that will sit in my computers "Writing" folder that only ever gets seen by maybe two pairs of eyes, but something that I can publish on my little corner of the Internet. A corner that much to my dismay has been neglected for far too long. 

So hello again ... it's nice to see you. 

You're looking good. 

What have you been up to?

I have been -- besides sucking at grammar -- falling deeper and deeper in love with my program. 
The future is exciting. I can't wait to see what it holds for me. I've been thinking for awhile that if I'm ever going to make it I'm going to have to start practicing what I preach. And put in practice what I learn, although to be honest it's all been theory based thus far, but I guess I don't want it to be too late to start. 

So I guess here is me starting again. 

I don't know where that's going to take me. When I first started this four-and-a-half years ago I didn't really know what I was doing or who I wanted to be. And yet it's lead me to here and there's nowhere else I'd rather be. 

Let's see where this takes me.

Unfortunately, right now I'm going to have to go back to The Copy Editor's Handbook (clearly I learned nothing in the hyphen chapter or maybe I'm just trying to prove a point ... nah I'm actually just really bad at this) and learn about "... the most common headaches that arise in the area of capitalization."

They're not kidding about the headache. 

be my shelter and I will be your storm

In an ongoing journey of finding yourself, you always suspect there to be an end. That suddenly you will be faced with a version of yourself that is somehow wholly yours and wholly you. I don’t think that that is true, or ever could be. 

I did not think it could ever be possible to grow any more than I did in my first year of university. But I was so very wrong. I had a lot still to learn. 

For one thing I had to learn how to be fully independent and figure things out for myself. Transferring to a new school was not only beneficial program-wise, but an important step in growing. I was for the first time in my life, in a situation where I was completely by myself. And I had to figure things out by myself. And I had to learn a lot of things about that too. 

I had to learn how to be happy. 

That was the hardest lesson of all. I had to learn how to be happy. Not just happy with myself, but happy with everything. It’s true what they say, you know? About treating everything like it is an adventure. Like going to the grocery store to get toilet paper is something worth making into a big deal. Because maybe you couldn’t get yourself out of bed past 12. And maybe you had to make yourself eat something. And maybe that was the only reason for you to get dressed. But it is something. 

Realizing that whether you stay in bed all day miserable or get up and go get toilet paper and be happy, are things that are totally in your control. And I didn’t want to stay in bed all day miserable anymore. Once I learned, at least the beginning, of how to be happy, it was so much easier to find a home and to find my place here. 

And I’ve learned that good and bad things come in waves. 

We have to lean on each other and we have to take turns. If you’ve found your person, like I have, this part becomes a whole lot easier. You learn how to be equally part vulnerable and strong. You learn when to break and when to be supportive. Because they are the only person who can just look at you and really see you. See everything and not want to change anything. See everything and know exactly how you're doing and what to do. 

Somedays they will need you and you will be there. And somedays you will need them, and they will be there for you too. But it’s important never to take them for granted. Because good and bad things come in waves.

And I’ve learned that life happens. 

One of the hardest things is being here and not having time, because life happens. You just have to make good the time that you have. And sometimes things don’t work out and things fall through. But there will be other days. 

And I continue to learn that if I’m bolder than the darkness I will continue to learn how to be more and more independent. And I will continue to learn how to be happy. And I will continue to learn that sometimes you will be someone’s shelter and they will be your storm. And I will continue to learn that sometimes life just happens. 

What I know for sure, though, is that down these roads that wander as lost as our hearts, we’ll find ourselves. It won’t be a means to an end, but a journey of forever finding ourselves. And we will learn.