If Grief Was A Line

Some days, you wake up with grief sitting on your chest.
Other days, it sneaks up on you when you least expect it.
Some days you wear it like a harness that's too tight, while other days you can hold it at arms length.
Sometimes it infuses the very air you breathe, making everything feel heavy and humid.
(Sometimes it feels like that for days, or even weeks at a time).
Sometimes it's triggered by something seemingly insignificant; a song, a place, a smell.
Sometimes it's triggered by something that wasn't a trigger yesterday.
Grief is confusing like that.
Some days, you might be able to leave grief at home.
Other days, it underlines every thought, every word.
Grief can make you forget things.
Sometimes it whispers, sometimes it shouts.
Sometimes grief controls your dreams.
(We grieve awake and asleep, you know).
If grief was a line, we might have a better idea of what to expect and when to expect it.
If grief was a line, we could prepare ourselves. Plan better.
If grief was a line, we might have come up with a solution by now.
If grief was a line, it might make sense.
Grief is not a line.
Grief is a minefield.

27

I turn 27 today. 

Chronologically, not exactly a big one. But this birthday is a big deal for me, mostly because of how hard I've worked to get here.

Turning 27 marks surviving what has easily been the the most difficult year of my life (which is possibly the understatement of the year). It also represents the slow and (at times) painful transition from surviving to thriving. Several months ago, life as I knew it came to an abrupt halt. A lot of things were broken and taken away from me and replaced with feelings of fear, hopelessness, abandonment, and pessimism. For that reason, I've had to unlearn a lot of untrue things about myself and unbelieve a lot of lies. For me, 27 is a fresh start as my best self, and is choosing to believe that the best is yet to come. I am stronger, more confident, and more self-aware than I've ever been. I know what I'm capable of and what I'm worthy of and I'm not willing to settle for less. I know who I am, and I believe that I have something beautiful to offer the world that no one else can.

27 is going to look very, very different than 26 in some of the scariest ways. However, I have never in my life felt more loved, cherished, valued, and supported than I do right now; which, all things considered, is pretty incredible.

27 is beauty from ashes.

So, 

Cheers to 27:

To starting over, 

To healing, 

To rebuilding, 

To dreaming big, 

To shooting for the moon,

And to doing the impossible.

Just Do It

If there's one thing I've learned in the last 8 months it's that life is  f r a g i l e. It's so easy to get caught up in believing that you've got your whole life ahead of you -- the long, [mostly] happy and healthy, [generally] disaster-free life where you fall in love, get married, have kids, have a career, and die of old age. We forget that tomorrow was never promised to us and that life can drastically change course in a split second.

The fact is, you never know when a bomb is going to go off. You don't expect a best friend to get a terminal cancer diagnosis, or your marriage to explode, or to get t-boned by a maniac in a stolen Prius going 90 mph. For a long time I believed the lie that the really devastating things happen to other people. Friends of friends. Close enough to cause me some discomfort without really having a direct impact on my life.

Consider me humbled. Anything is possible and I am not immune.

As a result, I'm learning to hold loosely to things and take nothing for granted. Things are things and can be replaced. Plans can change without it being the end of the world. Other people's opinions of me are none of my business (and I'm much happier not caring what they are, anyway). I'm learning to relax my grip, let go of my need for control, and take things as they come. I can't afford to waste time sweating the small things anymore.

This change in perspective has been a pretty serious wake-up call for me. Life is far too short to waste it creating a long list of "maybe someday"s. Someday isn't even a real thing. So now I'm constantly asking myself questions like why not? and if not now, when? I cringe at the thought of leaving this life with a bucket list of things I never got around to doing. I'm the only one that can make them happen. And so I find myself with this new, super cliché, Nike-esque just do it attitude. Because I can't come up with a single good reason not to.

Instead of talking about doing things I want to do, I'm figuring out how to make them happen. For me, that most often looks like just booking the trip or buying the Justin Bieber tickets. It's getting my Pediatric Nurse certification and applying for my dream job. It's training for the half marathon. It's dying my hair pink and blue and purple and whatever color I happen to feel like dying it next. It's trying new things and going places I've never been. It's letting my dreams get big and doing whatever it takes to make them a reality.

I'm not endorsing a frivolous, irresponsible lifestyle here. I'm simply pointing out that life can tend to get away from us. If you want something, find a way to make it happen. Don't make excuses not to do the things you love and dream about. Go get them, because chances are they won't just fall into your lap. Life is fragile, and you only get one. Make it count while you still can.


"Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all." - Helen Keller