Like Wildfire

Life is a constant motion, an array of epiphanies. Feelings arranged like flowers, by clumsy hands. Sometimes you are the mountain and sometimes you are the climb. Today I am the mountain.

If I've come to learn anything in my 32 years of life, it is that sometimes you need to let someone look at like you like you are a map, like a mystery, like a puzzle they can't wait to put together. In these small moments, you take it in with a shot of whiskey, a breathe of air in silence, a single hair that escapes in an open-windowed car ride home that turns into a rain of chaos filled laughter.

So often we write when we are wringing our hearts out like wet laundry but what if we wrote when we felt ablaze? What if we wrote when sentences didn't make sense and hearts were a flutter? What if we stood on our rooftops and yelled that we were happy and in general wearing yesterdays' leggings but giving no fucks? What if we cheers'd on Tuesday nights to hope instead of waiting for weekends to fill our mouths with numb? What if.

Maybe if we all lived a little parachute-less. And I know you're thinking that this is coming from the girl who quite often walks out the front door and ends up rolling into the front yard. But maybe sometimes we jump with no safety net, confident in our ability to land.

I've never been much for sparks--I set forests on fire with a single look. When you find the reason, the match, the person....light it. Let it burn...like wildfire.

For once, I am filled with less words and more knowing eyes. Quiet thoughts and bowed heads and biting lips.

Pack it Up

I was talking to a friend today whom I love dearly about emotions and relationships and heartache. We talked about punching trees (it felt right) to release frustration and how sometimes it truly feels like you've been left raw and bleeding. In a way, set out on the street for people to stare at. That's how vulnerable life can leave us feeling sometimes, amirite? 

And with all of that, we build up experiences and chide ourselves for not learning and not knowing better. 

We claim to carry baggage and to come with a prescribed list of problems and oddities. We have battle wounds. We come with a self-plastered warning label. 

You know, as humans I think we talk about emotional scars often because we all have them. Because we want to relate. They are all very personal but none more so than in love. At least that's what I've been hearing lately. That's what everyone's being laying at my feet. A whole lot of aching.

Maybe it's the smell of their perfume. Their favorite song comes on, your heart drops and you let your hand pass over their favorite pack of gum in the store and you wonder why you feel such a pang, so much so that you could drop to the floor of aisle 15. A book of matches. A fucking sock left behind, a paper clip--it doesn't matter, memory comes clawing down your back and burns every bit of the way.

This isn't baggage. Baggage is something you pack. Baggage is what you willing take with you in tiny zipped bags inside of other bigger zipped bags and baggage is optional. Hurt isn't baggage. Memories aren't baggage. Feel all the things and cry every single tear. Retrace every single inch of their fingertips on your flesh and recall their image in your head like a movie screen....do it as many times as you want but then roll those things up and put them in suitcases and leave them at the bus station. Go and don't look back.

 I'm not saying you won't still feel pain. You should. You're human. With pain is strength and growth and solidarity. But know you don't have to carry it all with you. You can unpack...cliche as it is. Your feelings are not baggage. Your experiences are not baggage. How you choose to react to them decides the weight of your load.

 I don't want you to be heavy anymore.

Pack that shit in an old duffel bag. Bury it in a field. Set it on fire (too far?) I'm here to help..

  I love you all.

Noble Hurt

I drank it all. I swam in it. I sank. I let myself drown it all, openly sputtering and gasping like a side show.

 This is how to feel without boundaries. This is submerging. 

This is ok because you aren't really going under. Just lift your head up from your hands, see it all. Wipe your eyes, take a breathe and know the weight of being your own savior. Realize the effort it takes to lift yourself out of churning waters willingly and forcefully, like fire to tinder, igniting. 

Some are like fireworks in the backyard. Burning bright and close and fast and raining down ash in soft patterns. Be stars. Be ever present, not a quick flash, not a spark. Don't be temporarily exciting, my dear, be magnanimous and overwhelming in your greatness. Do not feel like you have to be the boom, be the embers always lit. Be soft, stay gentle and light up paths. 

Be ok with tiny love affairs and take them as they come. Build from them. Understand preparation for your heart, built up like a warrior of sorts. Don't ever become jaded because it will cut you at the knees and make you falter. If they lie, look at them knowingly. Pour out every ounce of you into everything you do and let it mold like cement and be concrete. Be still. Be silent.  Be ok hurting sometimes. 

Go alone and submit to the night. Cry. Let them put arms around because even if they aren't that love you so dreamed of, they understand you when you feel like things might crumble. Give in. 

Go to sleep. Know things will get better tomorrow, even if only the amount that equals one grain of sand. Be grateful for what you do have and mourn your losses then bury them. Lay them to rest. Give up the ghost. 

My darling you will be ok. You can do this.

I love you: I love me for that matter. 

Everything You Already Knew

I was reading back today on this blog which is years and years old and full of a lot of early-to-mid-twenties angst, plenty of bad words and a smattering of motherhood. I've never really been able to decide on what direction it should go in, if any. In keeping up truths with myself, I've just decided to write as it comes, all clusterfucky and raining down like surprise confetti. Today I just want to talk about me. Again. Maybe next time we'll talk about you. I don't know.

It's funny to me the way we treat objects. Like...this is the mug that once held my coffee. It goes on this shelf. It has a collector's retail value of $67.89 providing that it stays wrapped, on that shelf. Please look carefully. I'm saving it for my grandsons perhaps one day if I have any. Please don't touch it. We cushion shot glasses from Miami and precious crystal vases in bubble wrap that stay tucked forever away in spider-filled basements but we very rarely talk about our bellies that have held children or the knuckle-nicks we have on our fingers from smashing them in tire spokes. 

We save dried flower petals but can't seem to preserve our self worth. I wish sometimes we looked at our bodies like stories, full of great adventure.

This isn't a new topic. I've spoken before on body image because I think it's important and while I'm not a radical about it, our bodies speak volumes without ever saying a word. As a photographer, I meet so many people weekly. Often times, they are asked to be at their most vulnerable not only in front of me, a stranger, but a camera that will forever pause that time. They try to tuck away chins and laugh nervously, making self-loathing jokes that just break my heart.

(And seriously guys, why are we always comparing ourselves to poultry with chicken skin and gobble necks cause bruh, fuck turkeys).

I love that you have freckles and quite frankly, I want to cup your face in my hands and run my thumbs gently over your cheeks and admire you. I love your soft belly and the way your natural hair falls into waves when it's wet and your full lips and your legs. You see twigs, I see dancer. Farmer's tan? I see hard work. I don't see scars I see tales and I want to know them all. Mostly, I love your wit and charm and that you read. You're strong and you stay up late to get shit done, you hold two jobs, you run marathons, you are an expert seamstress with nimble fingers.  Your palms bring babies into this world and build walls to houses and sift flour to bake cookies for tiny hands. You stand up for the bullied an comfort the lost. You make the bed every day, even when you don't feel like getting out of it.

You are so much more than just a body. I am so much more.

I can't lie, I have a small goal of someday being able to fix my hair so flawlessly that people literally fall down in the grocery store in awe. But before they see me,  I want them to hear me talking to my son, full of heart in every whispering word and silly giggle.

I'm not a plastic wrapped couch meant to sit in the living room. I'm a couch that wants to go and explore the world (sometimes these analogies go wrong, try to keep up).

My body is just a vehicle for my soul. I'd like to think I'm a pretty good driver.

I love you all.

UnSorry

This probably won't be the most well thought out blog from me, but I'm attempting to keep this updated a little bit more.

Where do I even start. I mean...we all know how much I apologize. It's been a running joke for years. Just...not a very funny one after awhile. Sorry (I'm kidding, sorry). It's been weighing on my heart lately.

Somewhere in these 32 years of existence, it because easier to say sorry than to stand firm behind my words. The truth is that I rarely feel apologetic about what I'm saying. My convictions and opinions and laughter and love are not sorry. For me, sorry has become a way to test the waters instead of just diving right in. Sorry has become a wall that I'm desperately trying to tear down.

I could go into how certain circumstances and people and things have conditioned me in a way to think that I SHOULD be sorry, and often. Sorry for breathing wrong, or trying to hold a hand or sorry for complimenting in the wrong way. Sorry dinner wasn't good enough. Sorry I'm wearing the blue dress. Sorry I'm not enough. Sorry I'm never enough.

To do that would to allow myself to be a victim, and I refuse to play that part. No matter what shreds of my past have aided in these feelings, they are but tiny remnants on my flesh, and not permanent pieces of my inner most workings.

 I've worn sorry like a Halloween mask, with acceptable room for eye holes but barely enough room to breathe.

You know what, you should be sorry if you're an incredible asshole. If you spill your drink down a strangers shirt. If you run over someone's rose bush in your Toyota. If you poke someone in the eye with your finger while wildly gesturing. Be sorry. Be all the sorries. But don't be sorry for just existing.

I would like to say I'm sorry for spending so much time running after the wrong people, but I'm not, because all of that running has given me strong legs to climb mountains, quite literally. I'd like to say sorry for acting recklessly in the past, for giving pieces of my heart away to strangers but I'm not. In all of this, my compassion has grown tenfold and blossomed into a million bright flowers. I'd like to say sorry for being me, for loud laughter for terrible jokes for wild hair but to do so would only diminish who I've fought to become. And I don't feel sorry for being me.

I can't afford to be sorry anymore. It will break me.

Sorry has been the shitty elevator music on my ride to the top floor. It's almost caused me to get stop too early before I reached this amazing view.

I might still say it sometimes. I can't help it. But I might follow it up with "I'm not sorry" and turn around and flounce away and trip over my own feet.

But don't worry--you don't have to be sorry for laughing.

I love  you all.

Not Magnificent, But Ok

I have the hardest time letting go.

Some nights I just can't breathe. When I finally cry, it's always in the most involuntary of ways--hands tucked into my sides, fists balled and digging into my waist as hard as I can just to keep myself upright. It's a rush of release, a baptism of tears and for me it's what I image drowning and then coming to the surface would be like. Gasping. Grateful. Broken. It's never at the right time and it's absolutely never pretty to witness.

Coming to yourself in honesty is painful. I'm realizing lately how okay it is to be completely vulnerable. Completely open. Completely raw. It's okay to be a little bit bruised. Like a banana...only, you know. Not.

I don't know when I stopped being upfront with myself and others. Lately I feel like I'm speaking a dead language. I feel like I've dug up a backyard treasure of words and emotions. When did it become so radical to just speak your mind? I'm not talking about politics or parenting, I mean in self worth as a woman.

The last time I can remember being myself was 5 years ago. That's the last time I can recall being upfront and passionately open with a guy--with myself even. The moment that I spoke out loud about my feelings I could literally see the panic bubbling up in his eyes. Every word that spilled out caused a second of his life to fall away and he was already mentally composing a text to his best friend Sean or Travis or Eli who was down the street drinking beer alone: "Dude. This. Girl. Is. Ducking. Crazy." Tears welled up in my eyes and I hung my head and muttered in the most joking way that I could "I'm just shitting you, of course". He nodded too fast. We laughed awkwardly. And that was it. I remember the exact moment I split almost in two with shame and vowed to stop being so ridiculous and emotional and such a stupid girl.

And that's hard to admit. Because I'm now 32. I have a son. I'm just finding my footing again and with that my voice is coming back. I am unabashedly in love with so many people and I tell them often--that is my heart. I'm not interested in pussyfooting around in general, not anymore at least. There is something very freeing about just being sincere and demanding the same thing in return. Speaking in tongues, in cryptic measures, in that dead dead language that I am so determined to bring back--honesty without fear.

On a recent trip to California for business, I had some real time to do soul searching. I screamed into the hills and 5 years of repression came exploding out, fucking up my brand new eyelash extensions. I had a gin-induced dance party completely barefoot on wet grass. I laughed and laughed and laughed until I ached. I sent the text I've been waiting to send for years "I'm not sorry anymore. I was honest. You should have asked me to coffee more. You should have valued me. You should have been honest...I was."

If reclaiming pieces of you was visible, there would have been great beams of light flowing into my core. It will happen for you too, no matter how much you've been hurt. No matter how dishonest you've been with yourself.

I used to give myself 30 days to "get over" things. I realize now that everything moves at it's own pace. Sometimes it's 30 days...times a lot.

Not everyone is going to respond well and not everyone is going to fall madly in love with you (but they should). Maybe you're like me and walk into walls a lot and trip over your own feet. Maybe you've given away far too many pieces of your spirit away in these life transactions with others. I'm not saying to not make mistakes or not sleep with the wrong guy or two or three. Maybe you need a Stella Brings Her Groove Back moment like mine in the midst of strangers in a muddy dress and wild hair. We all come into our own at exactly the right moment.

Speak in honest words and tones, even if you aren't there yet. Be careful who you let squeeze the produce, be the keeper of your own heart and mind and never turn down whiskey.  Value yourself deeper than you even think you can.

As for right now, I believe in Stella and I believe in me. I'm not magnificent, but I'm ok.

Stretch Pants Are In

Tonight I needed a bath. I just needed a little bit of time away to soak in hot water and steam and silence. It wasn't long before tiny fists were knocking, double time and tiny hands were fumbling (unsuccessfully thank you JEE-SUS) with the bathroom door knob.

I'm such a sucker for my kid and his long lashes and sweet high-pitched voice so I decided to let him join me in the second half of my tub-time, envisioning a picturesque mother-son moment. Within seconds, he had 1.Tried to grab my BRAND NEW IPHONE and toss it into the bath 2.took his toy boat and in one swift motion scoop-splashed water all over the floor and 3. Peed. Like. Full on peed unabashedly into the water. In my panic I grabbed him and tried to aim him somewhere else but it was too late. I grumbled to Josh to get me his toothbrush and I, instead of relaxing, wrestled the equivalent of a 23 pound miniature (soapy) walrus down, brushed his teeth and somewhat washed his hair.

This is mom life sometimes.

Even after bath time, I figured I might salvage the night and somehow transform into a sultry vixen. But. I. Shit I didn't even shave my legs. I sent Josh to get me a diet coke instead.

I am now wearing stretchy pants. I am not only wearing stretchy pants, but stretchy pants that go up to my boobs. I mean they really do...go all the damn way up and under (so nice). I'm also not even wearing a sports bra (referred to in my household as "not a real bra") and a tank top. And I'm tired of feeling apologetic about it all.

You know, lately it feels like I'm inundated with self-love blogs, photos, shared Facebook stories and inspirational Instagram accounts. Anyone that knows me understands that I 100% agree with loving your self--whether it be plus size, fit, pregnant, post-pregnancy, breast feeding, tall short...whatever! I am a HUGE fan of the postpartum body movement and 4th Trimester project.  Really. But where are the MOMS? I guess what I mean is...like me. Because I still look at these photos and think...I am such a wreck. How do I get there? HOW do I look good balancing my toddler on my hip while attempting to breast feed him upside down and cook chicken fajitas at the same time?

I hope everyone knows that what the Birth Without Fear and 4th Trimester Bodies does is incredible. I admire each woman and their story, pregnancy, birth and after. I just feel left out. I'm overly honest and my heart is permanently attached to my sleeve. I can't lie when I say that sometimes I gravitate more towards (and search out) moms who admit that motherhood is HARD sometimes.

I don't ever want anyone to think that I don't love being a mom. Or that I'm an uncontrollable slob (for those that haven't met me yet....heyyyyy). I do shower. I do put on mascara. I do other things besides just act as mom. But I also fully believe in being honest and banding together as friends and sharing the moments that aren't so awesome because it means we aren't alone. And sometimes it's hard NOT to feel alone, even when someone very small is very audibly screaming something nonsensical about boobs and ducks and dada and bye-bye in the background.

I just want to see some photos. Is that sick? Probably just a little bit. None of us want to have some asshole pop in and snap a photo as our rear is hanging fashionably out of the back of our yoga pants and we have lime yogurt smeared on our shirt and in our day-two-dry-shampooed-hair. None of us want to have someone catch us attempting to actually eat a fifth cookie secretly in the kitchen while leaving the vacuum running in the median just a little extra time because you KNOW your toddler won't walk past it and ask for another bite. No one wants to see that.

Except me.

 I want to see it. I at least want to know that I'm not the only one. Because no matter what, I think you're super gorgeous and doing a damn good job. Even after you've had an involuntary pee bath.

Amen and goodnight.