The Garden of Me

The pockets of this neighborhood are well worn with nostalgia. I walk the streets at sundown and listen to the wind, and the birds, and the volume of the world alive -- cars vroooming down side streets, the leaf blowers familiar racket, children laughing, dogs barking, and the sound of my high-tops lightly trodding on concrete.

And in this outside space - full of so much normal that, sometimes, I forget to listen - I exist so freely, and the dream narrative that runs through my mind becomes something possible to create.

I am fully awake in this fresh air suburbia, and I am writing my own story in the clear blue of my mind. And all the things I want to be, and do, and see are penciled in on the pages of time stretched ahead of me. And I realize now that it’s up to me to place these seed ideas into the soil of my life garden.

What I put into this earth matters, so I’m doing my best to sit in this planting place each day and tend to the precious life that is growing here. I never want to stop stopping to smell the roses or stand in awe of the bougainvillea, because I understand, now, how long they took to grow.

Someday, when I tell my kids these stories, I’ll start by describing the way the sunlight felt as it poured onto the garden of me.

Heartstrings

Like moving to a new home in the same town

It can never be the same twice 

All the days we’ve spent growing up apart  

All the days we will continue not to know each other 

All the days we will become more and more our own as we become less and less each others

Stories are happening to us and we don’t pick up the phone to call and tell about them with excitement still in our voices 

New life has become us and will continue to become us

No more hellos or how are you’s or ice cream sandwiched between two fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies 

No more childhood stars on the ceiling to watch over us as we sleep 

Stark stale silence

Forever to fill the space in between us

Funny how happy I am, despite the whole thing

A Fun Night We Had in College

SoOoOooo I moved onto my school campus a couple of months ago and now I live in a dorm room with three other girls. We run out of toilet paper every other day and talk too much and take naps at the least ideal hours forcing everyone else into a silent existence for thirty minutes or two hours because you just neeeever know with naps. 

We are never alone and sometimes that's hard, but we make space for each other to grow into the people we are becoming. We share the pieces of ourselves that you have to when you live in one room together. Like the fact that you're an insomniac and an active sleeper who is prone to snoozing their alarm ten times before rolling out of bed. WuUuuUt who ??  Meeee? Actually, yeah. Me.

By the grace of God we all get along. And even when we don't, we do.

I'm grateful for this weird little life of mine and the way that things constantly come together despite my fears and inhibitions. 

New Spaces

I wrote this during the summertime. I've grown and changed a lot since, but I'm still learning how to breathe in new spaces. I think I always will be.

When I was a tiny lil nugget my dad taught me how to swim in the ocean. We spent the whole afternoon floating and diving and getting familiar with a world that had yet been known to me. I learned a lot that day, but the sea is strong and unpredictable. Even though I knew how to approach the waves I still found myself in the crashing and was tumbled by the break. 

It’s a powerless feeling to be shaken so hard that you don’t know which way is up, but my dad taught me how to find direction despite disorientation. He told me that if I blew bubbles out of my nose underwater I could always follow them to the surface. It was silly and simple advice, but he was right and I never got lost in the tumbling again.

I’m 22 now, and the waves that I’m learning how to face are less water and more salt. Car payments and school loans. Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety. More anxiety. 

Today was a really hard day, but somewhere in between brain thumps and tears touching skin I remembered that summer afternoon I spent in the unfamiliar deep.

The ocean used to intimidate the hell out of me, and now it’s my favorite place to exist.

Ironic how, even underwater, learning how to breathe can save your life.

Accepting 23

Accepting my timeline has been one of the most challenging things for me. I thought I was supposed to be at a different ~life stage~ at age 23, but I’m slowly learning that the only one who has to be at peace with the rhythm of my life is me. I’ll never know what I’m doing exactly, but I’m getting better at the not knowing part. Finding more peace and less anxiety in the quiet spaces. Growing into the person you’re supposed to be is hard, don’t let anyone fool ya.

Counterclockwise

I'm aware of the motion of time. The clock goes round and round and round and I can hear it ticking and I feel as though I'm sitting on the hand of the hour letting it move me in the only direction it knows how.

Mostly, I'm okay to sit, but there are moments when the air is crisp and the sky is navy blue and sidewalks are for dancing and laughter takes the place of breath and I know it's impossible, but I wish I could stay just a little bit longer under the freckled dark. 

I'm aware of the motion of time. The clock goes round and round and round and I want to stand up and push back -- fight the hour and the minute with both of my hands and send the seconds in reverse.