The Mess of Becoming

Okay, okay, okay. So I’m 23 and I’m about to be 24 in a week and I still feel just as confused as I was at 20. Heck, I feel even MORE confused than I was at 20. At least at 20 it was still okay to live at home and be in school because everyone else was generally doing the same thing.

23 going on 24 is different. The better portion of my friends have life, at least, somewhat figured out. They clock in and out or rock at doing freelance, and even though I’m pretty sure they have struggles of their own, they make it look easy.

And though I envy the aesthetic of an easy life I also laugh in the face of my envy.

Easy. Ha! What a word. I mean it’s kind of funny you have to admit… the idea that life could ever be easy.

No matter who we are we are still human, and being human is the most challenging thing in the world. Especially when you have to succumb to the woes of adulthood. But do we have to succumb? In a world of infinite possibility it would seem that there must be a better way…

I moved out when I was 21 and, during the time, I wrote a post about what it felt like to be a “growin’ up.” I said that I didn’t ever think I’d feel like a grown up. And I was right.

See, my notion of “grown ups” has always been that they have it all figured out. Which, of course, I’m learning, is not true. I meaaaan seriously. My mom was close to my age when she had me, and I just gotta tell ya right now, if I become a mom tomorrow I would not know what the HELL to do with myself. I can hardly take care of me much less another human being…

My point is, none of us are every ready to be humans, but we have to be humans anyway. I’m just over here in the struggle wondering how come.

This is all just a lot of mind vomit but it’s all that I can ever think about in this season of figuring out what it means to be 23 for me and how I’m going to pay rent next month and get all of this debt to eventually leave me alone.

As badly as I want to get it together I can’t seem to figure out how. I know I have about a million creative things I could do to make ends meet, but my depression has been so debilitating that I don’t even know where to begin.

So here is where I am beginning. Writing it all out in the most honest way that I know how. And I want to start doing it more as I stated in my previously written post like… three weeks ago... I promise I’ll get better!

That said, I want to hear from you! What are some big life questions that you have that we can explore together? Small life questions are welcome too. I just want to get a conversation going while I’m still in this place of absolute confusion and heartbreak and disillusion.

We’re all in this together and I want to explore what that looks like in an honest capacity.

A Good Reminder

It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me. When it comes to dying even. Nothing ponderous, or portentous, or emphatic. No rhetoric, no tremolos, no self conscious persona putting on its celebrated imitation of Christ or Little Nell. And of course, no theology, no metaphysics. Just the fact of dying and the fact of the clear light. So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered.
-Aldous Huxley, Island (Thank you, heartmindspirit & atelier)

A Letter of Intent

26 October 2018

Ya know what? Maybe I’ll just start journaling here.

That’s what a blog is supposed to be anyway, right? A place where a twenty somethin’ can come to spill her guts out to the whole wide world in an insomniac induced stupor?

Great! I thought so.

Okay, okay. So maybeeee not everyyyyoneeee puts their actual journal up on the world wide web, but I figure that’s why I probably should.

Okeeeyy well it’s 3:50am rn so I should also probablyyyy get some sleep before we delve into the good stuff.

I guess consider this my letter of intent? I’m hoping it’ll hold me accountable.

Love,
A, perhaps, more consistent version of myself than yesterday

Shop Hesby

Every great living room in the history of eveeeer has had a great rug. I haven’t done my fact checking on this one, but I’m almost certain that it has to be true.

I can attest because without a rug the awkward empty space between my couch and coffee table felt like an abyss. My feet were cold and I didn’t have any desire to hangout and read a book on the couch. Clear signs of an unfinished room.

I scoured the internet for a month and a half before I finally found this Shop Hesby rug and fell in love. I knew that it was just what we needed to bring color, life, and warmth into the space.

I was totally right and I couldn’t be happier with the way this little space is turning out! It’s not perfect yet, but these things take longer than a minute if you want to do them right. Or so I’m told.

Parentheses

You're born and in a snap you're paying rent and buying toilet paper and all of your utensils belong to you

Your heart is covered in tape and hot glue and pushpins and strings

And you are no longer a child

And all the words you have ever spoken exist in between two parentheses on your face

You're born and all of these things really do happen in a snap

But five minutes can feel like a lifetime when you're waiting for the final beep on the microwave 

Maybe we aren't always meant to purge the weight of the people who have sunk their feet into the soft places of our heart.