Why I do what I do. :)

Moments like these and people like Stu.

“Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible and live long lives.”

Maya Angelou (American Poet, b.1928)

My favorite movement. And who we are not.

You are not your body composition.

You are not your Squat PR.

You are not your tupper-ware.

You are not your marriage, your relationship, your lust.

You are not the people you love.

You are not the people you idolize.

You are not the people who love you.

You are not your children.

You are not your nationality.

You are not your family.

You are not your religion.

You are not your brokenness.

You are not your habits.

You are not your past.

You are not your future.

You are not the food you eat.

You are not the clothes you wear.

You are not the way you talk.

You are not your mistakes.

You are not your degree, your job, or your calling.

You are not even the skin you're in because that will fade too.

You are not yours.

You are not even your loneliness.

You are not your discontent.

You are not your anger.

You are not your goodness.

You are something far deeper, far more intricate, far more flighty, far more present, far more hard to pin down.

But you always are.

Forgiveness.

This is coming from the below: "Committed" by Elizabeth Gilbert : "In the end, it seems to me that forgiveness may be the only realistic antidote we are offered in love, to combat the inescapable disappointments of intimacy."

but I've been thinking about it a lot lately.

That is what I feel I have been in intimacy - disappointed. And disappointment rises out of expectation. Expect nothing. Appreciate everything. Try not to get walked over. Let Go. Forgive. Learn. Move on. And the beat goes on.

Maybe it's culture that sets us up. Maybe it's me.

Someone very close to me has (in the past) expressed to me before that I have massively disappointed them. That's a hard thing to accept - especially if the way you are is a way that you need to be for a time. It's not a good feeling.

Still I think in the end, it's life that guides us to expect big things. We love mountains, horizons, shores, and prospects. It's embedded in us to love treasure, to hope for it, to expect it.

We expect loyalty. We cast a line out for friendship. Every step we take is a risk, not a promise.

We do this again and again and again - no matter how many times we are run into ground, no matter how many times we feel emotional pain so intense it's visceral, no matter how many times we lose faith and feel wrecked.

I used to think starfish and regenerated limbs were cool - but how do you regenerate hope?

I've been waitressing again and this experience, in spite of the running around, is something that keeps me humble and mystified by just how brave everyone in the world is. Some of the people I meet every day are incredibly brave. They wake up in the morning and meet the day... regardless of how they feel, regardless of the fact that there are dreams the size of Jupiter in their hearts - things they want to do, things they wish they'd never done, memories they are trying to forget.

Still, you meet the day.

I wonder if anyone else ever gets this feeling? Some people are absolutely fascinating to me. They are worlds of events, potential, and scars. It's like some crazy action movie where the hero gets pummeled by bullet after bullet but somehow manages to speak, to act, to live to die another day. How does everyone walk around living with a knife in their back? How do they do it?

And they do. Anyone I have ever met and had the time to get to know knows pain, knows what it's like to be betrayed, to betray another, to betray yourself. How do we do it? How do we live with ourselves?

We are ridiculously resilient.

I think I am beginning to understand that so much of letting go is bound up in forgiveness - something I don't really talk about much anymore, though I'd formerly practiced it (and believe me, that ish takes practice). I don't think we're asked to overlook all of this - because the people that refuse to believe they are broken are the weirdest of all, the least happy - but I do think we are asked to acknowledge that nothing is so bad that hating it will make it better.

And in the end too - I think forgiving yourself may be the hardest part.

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.” - August Wilson

iofficiallyhatethis.

Hell hath no fury, and words.

I'll marry myself to the whole wide world
And never make her cry

-The Wailin' Jenny's