Lately, it feels as if nearly every word I utter/write is TMI…

So, I turned to my camera (phone) instead only to end up feeling like it was TMI as well…

Perhaps this is my life. TMI. Repeat. TMI. Repeat.

I can’t help thinking that I’ll either get the hang of it or get more comfortable with it…at some point…I hope.

*writewritewrite – deletedeletedelete*

Yup, that’s still me…damned creativity is so frickin’ revealing…

Lately, it feels like the only place I can hide is deep inside of me.

And hiding gets boring after a while…

Being vulnerable is…telling the truth.

Every time.

It’s telling the truth.

Not hiding.
Not being defensive.
Not finding something close to the truth…

When I most miss him, I can hardly bring myself to pick up the phone.

I don’t want to be bothersome, needy, rejected.

I’ll find myself reaching for anything that might take the feeling of vulnerability away:

I’m busy…
I’m independent…
I’m a mom…
I’m self-sufficient…
I have wine…
…and chocolate.

I am so afraid to ask him for the simplest of things…

And yet, when I do, he almost always says, “yes”…

Just like I do…

So then I’ll find myself telling myself that he must still be infatuated with me, when in fact, he just might love me.

How scary is that?

Some days it’s darn scary…because it’s what I’ve always wanted, a love that loves me the way I need to be loved.

(What if it goes away?)

Being vulnerable is…

…taking that chance, letting that love in, being open, not hiding, telling him I love him (even if I already told him), telling him I miss him (before he says it first)…

…saying what’s true, instead of saying what feels ‘safe’.

After so many years of being rejected for being who I am, it’s quite something to be loved for exactly who I am.

He loves me when I’m soft…

…soft and vulnerable.

Being vulnerable…is where love lives.

I’ve bitten them since I was a little girl…

If I can stop biting my nails, what can’t I do?

I’m thinking the sky is the limit but how about we talk about what I CAN do…

I can make pies like this:

Gluten-free even. Which is probably why my crust is falling apart. But hey, isn’t it gorgeous, the way that crust is falling apart? It did it all by itself. Yes, it did. I saw it happen before I took it out of the oven and I think it’s L.O.V.E. Yep…that’s what I think.

I love you like blackberry-rhubarb pie, baby…  Yes, I do.

I can do that, you know.

Yes, I can.

I once heard said, that the day you run out of excuses is the day your life changes…

My stories help me understand…

Sharing my stories helps me break the chains that tie my present to the past…(sometimes this takes some telling (and then more telling) to accomplish)…

My stories are not excuses, they are explanations, though I do have to be careful that I don’t get so wrapped up in the telling of them (to myself or others) that I forget that they are in the past, not the present – that I do not let them become excuses, simply because I am afraid of change.

Change scares the beejeezus out of me…

Almost as much as happiness.

Or perhaps, it scares me more…so that I fear happiness…because happiness is change…

For me anyway.

And because, when I am happy, I choose me…which means, things around me change…a.lot.

Which means my happiness could go away…

I’d almost rather not have it ever, than to have it and then lose it…

Almost…

But just over a year and two months ago, I chose “happy”. It took me many years before I was ready, but I chose myself and I chose to find a life of happiness because I KNEW I deserved to be happy, no matter what the voices said.

Who says how long I have to wait to be happy?
Where’s the book on that?
Haven’t I suffered enough already?

Today, I am happier than I have ever been. Seriously. In my entire life.

That doesn’t mean that I’m always smiling. Or that I’m stress-free. Or that I don’t still break down in tears (more often than I care to admit). Or that I don’t still react and that I haven’t hid myself away a bit (which is one of the reasons I’ve been so quiet here)…

But I am happy.

And I am so much stronger than I was a year and two months ago…

So, even though this new happiness (and this love that makes my heart soar) is scary shite…

I’m going to keep choosing, me and:

Happiness and:

Love.

I’m committed to the jump.

I may not have yet quite landed…

But there’s no turning back now…

And it was you.

Lately, I’ve been feeling very soft…

Very soft indeed…

Vulnerable.

And even though I am always reaching for the light to shine through my thin skin…

I find I’ve been tip-toeing back through the diffused spaces…(they feel safer)…

And making cotton balls out of blossomed branches…(just in case)…

It’s not that I’m afraid of the heights…or the sun…or the pink, pink moon….

It’s just that the sky is SO BLUE up here…

And the rule of three surprised me once again…

So, if I’m not worrying about the next rainy day I’m not sure just what to do with myself…

I suppose, I could embrace this joyful kind of happy that’s taken root in my heart…

And let the dandelions catch me, should I  fall…

Healing takes work…
And long walks…
And oceans…

Great company doesn’t hurt…
Especially when it inspires…

And takes perfectly orchestrated fingers-partially-over-the-lens photographs…

And reminds us of the importance of balance…

And taking time to just gaze…

Because life really is a thing of beauty and wonderment…

All the random bits…

And obstacles…

And the pieces that take time (ages perhaps) to come together…

She reminds me that it’s okay to let go, if only for a moment…

That it’s okay to only see the next rock or two ahead…

And to always come home with a pocketful.

i miss you here

and i miss you here

and i miss you here

and right here a whole, whole lot…

and even here.

i miss you in all the places that it hurts the most beautifully…

and all i can do is to keep running.

“She couldn’t go back and make the details pretty, she could only move forward and make the whole beautiful.”  ~Terri St. Cloud

~

i find it in my coffee cup
the crease of a napkin
the way he pulls in his lip
right before his fingers take flight across the keyboard
a familiar profile matching
the white sails of the ships that pass us by

i find it by looking up,
rather than hiding inside the embrace
the smile-lit-nearly-bashful gaze
my arm sliding down his back
the feel of spine against  palm
stepping with and towards rather than away

i find it running through the woods
each step reverberating heartbeat
joy shouting out its name
dripping from leaves
shirring out from underneath fallen logs
and then scattering bright drops of sun beams
across the shadowed floor

~

i know what they say about love
i know the endings to all the stories
i know that what is real isn’t always so pretty
i know love hurts as well as heals
that sometimes it goes away; sometimes it never arrives
i know the blessing of the unconditional and completely seen
which is worth ten thousand times more than the fairytale kiss
that is to say, that i know better…
but still i want for
the kind of love that looks into my eyes
and reaches for me in the night
the kind that runs under the moon and
warms the day
the kind that meets me where i am
plopped down in the mud
and calls me beautiful with a wild splash to the face.