" 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."
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That 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."
Read More221//365 /
"Come with every wound and every woman you’ve ever loved; every lie you’ve ever told and whatever it is that keeps you up at night. Every mouth you’ve punched in, all the blood you’ve ever tasted. Come with every enemy you’ve ever made and all the family you’ve ever buried and every dirty thing you’ve ever done; every drink that’s burnt your throat and every morning you’ve woken with nothing and no one. Come with all your loss, your regrets, sins, memories, black outs, secrets. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you." —Warsan Shire
Read MoreBlindsided Me /
"I feel like I'm actually sharing my life with someone in ways I never have before. It's alien and engrossing and amazing and unbelievable. It's strange. It's wonderful. It's totally blindsided me."
Read MoreBefore You Know It Something’s Over /
"My father died on November 14th, 1995, when I was 14. Every day since the day he died I am one day farther away from him than I was before. This is the truest thing about me. It is the most important and worst thing to ever happen to me. It is me. My father died when I was 14. I will tell people this forever. It is the truest thing about me. I was 14 when he died. My father. I was 14. I am what I have lost." —Marie Lyn Bernard
Read MoreThe Mountains Are Calling /
"The mountains are calling and I must go." ―John Muir
Read MoreWithout Constant Comparisons /
"Since voicing all of these things, saying them out loud to a friend, I feel like I'm seeing him and my life with him through clearer glasses. Or at least I'm trying to approach this life without constant comparisons to my last one."
Read MoreA Chance I'm At Peace with Taking /
"I have to see this through. I'm following my heart on this and it may blow up in my face in the end but it's a chance I'm at peace with taking."
Read MoreIntricacies and Nuances /
"I fear there will be so many little intricacies and nuances of my life that are forever lost to a forgetful past because I haven't made the time to write them down.
Read MoreStrange /
"This is so strange, we're so strange...whatever it is that he and I are trying to do here.
ot lose each other, I guess."
Nonsensical Jibberish /
We've been talking so much, in fact, I told him I didn't, in fact, feel the aloneness I should really be feeling.
Read MoreWords and Daughters /
"15 years ago a man moved into the next step.7 and a quarter centuries earlier, another man traveled on too. Their deeds, their lives, even their words and daughters are beautiful echoes. "The future is ours - it's ours to choose." - Clay Tillett "What you seek is seeking you." - Jalal ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi... better known as Rumi. This can be a hard day, but I think you know happiness today. The fact that you can feel it today, means you can feel it any day. I'm grateful to be a part of it. I would tell your dad that you are an incredible friend. I'd tell him you are a great human being. That you've grown into an amazing woman. I'd tell him how in love with you I am, and pray I've done good by you, and continue to. I'd hope he found me worthy. I love you, Becky. I'll never stop." —M. O'Shaughnessy
Read MoreNotions /
"Sometimes the sadness creeps in and I spend time comforting him and hugging and holding him, telling him not to be sad and that everything will be okay. Sometimes my life feels so surreal I feel like I'm floating outside my body watching me moving effortlessly through the motions. I keep drifting back to preconceived notions in my head of what two people who have spent the last 14 years of their lives together who are going through the first steps of separating should look like. And no part of my life resembles or mirrors those notions."
Read MoreNothing Good Gets Away /
It's startling and even profoundly jarring how suddenly feelings of such fear and crushing defeat can sneak up on me; how small and alone I can feel in this painfully short and so quickly passing lifetime.
Sometimes life is nothing but a blur. Sometimes I think I'm predisposed to my father's eventual hopeless and fundamentally relenting inclination.
(Or worse even, my mother's living fear of being simply alone with herself.)
Read MoreToday I Now Have Two /
"It's said that you can not control the depth of a wound another soul inflicts upon you. But you can certainly control the depth of the wound you inflict on someone else. Since the age of 16 I've only had one regret: that I didn't tell my father goodnight and ignored him the night he shot himself. Starting today I now have two.
That I've so deeply hurt the one person I've loved the most in this world."
Read MoreBrutal and Full of Emotion /
"But things between us are too hard. Sometimes it's nice and weird and feels like everything's normal. Sometime's it's brutal and full of emotion and doubt, and sadness and 'What's wrong with me's' and 'Why won't you just stay's.'"
Read MoreHalf Yelling, Half Crying /
"He was distraught. He was filled with rage for the guy. He was worried about me. He said 'I had a bad feeling about you staying with him. I knew you shouldn't have stayed with him! I always knew he was a scumbag! Why didn't you listen to me?? Why did this happen!?' He was half yelling, half crying. I was bawling. I was apologizing. I should have listened. I should have listened. He's always right. He apologized. 'None of this is your fault. None of this is your fault.'"
Read MoreBreak Your Own Heart /
"You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart." —Cheryl Strayed
Read MoreFor Now, Relentlessly Onward /
I'm on a journey to find my purpose. I haven't yet figured out if it's something I carelessly lost along the way somewhere a few miles back, a few years back, a few spins back or if it's something I've never truly had a firm grasp on - purpose has always felt like a moth or a butterfly fluttering by me occasionally. If I'm lucky, every now and then I'll cage it between my hands, marveling at it's elusive beauty but it always escapes, fluttering away to be caged by others inevitably.
Read MoreBefore I Lose You /
"I would like to make love to you, and again, my tired head on your breasts, and again, my strong arms and shoulders lifting your hips up and rocking them, again, both hands turning you and pulling you and finally crushing down into you, again, my sweat and weight upon you. And again: for sex may get boring, but making love does not get boring, but it does get more and more intimate." —Waylon Lewis
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