"Never be the grown woman without direction. Never be the person with no goals or aspirations. Never float aimlessly through life. If you don’t have the answers, pretend to have the answers. And if you don’t know what inspires you, pretend everything inspires you. But that’s difficult, isn’t it? If you’ve never been inspired, how would you know how to feign it? It’s like attempting, in vain, to speak a language you’ve never learned. It’s like making love with your clothes on or swimming in the ocean with a life-jacket. Until you’ve ever really experienced passion and knowing the feeling of loving something so much more than yourself, throwing your entire body into it without discretion is an impossible task."
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Suicide is War /
Suicide is war. And perhaps not with a foreign or nameless enemy but with oneself. It’s an internal struggle of incomparable breadth. You lose enough battles and you lose the war. Bloodshed abounds. My father was at war with himself for years, if not decades and ultimately, he lost but it was something he could not heave himself out of or walk peacefully away from, waving a white flag. He was slated to fight until the day he died. That was his fate and he handled it as gracefully as he knew how. I have never blamed him for leaving. As quickly as I learned he had died I had forgiven him. Leaving early and on his terms was a non-negotiable clause in the fine print of his life. Somewhere, deep down in the pit of my gut I had always known it.
Read MoreEver-Changing /
" I am a woman, an American, an Australian, an introvert, an animal advocate, passionate soul, a loyal friend, a giver, a writer, a wife, an ex-wife, a girlfriend, a dweller, a small-towner-living-in-a-big-city, a fish out of water, an artist, an ex-self-mutilator, an empathy-filled spirit for all suffering beings, a photographer, a granddaughter, a gardener, a creator, a destroyer, an observer, a seeker, a lover, a grudge-holder, a forgiver, a re-inventor, a decorator, a reader, an appreciator of all beautiful things, a regretter, a graphic designer, a survivor, an ever-evolving human being. I am resilient. I am called to identify with countless labels and descriptors. I am called to try my hand at numerous undertakings."
Read MoreThat Very Redemption /
"Maybe the primary and most rational reasons we’ve found such contentment in each other is because, once finally emancipated from past strife and having gained the necessary perspective, we needed that very redemption to do so."
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