It won't ever be like it was in 2005

Who would've known that pride is so hard to swallow?

I don't know how it happened, but someone I used to call a best friend has completely faded away from me. 

What used to be a full of life, baseball playin', guitar singin', joke makin', story tellin', campfiring, river jumping, adventuring soul on fire has turned into a video gaming, cynical, hard hearted (and of course, hard working), vessel of a body with a small, dimmed flame. 

I know it's there.  There, lost.

But hear you me, my friends....

On sleepless roads, the sleepless go. 

There's no meaning in clothes and coffee cups.

It's nights like tonight when I am reminded of the fact that I love people so much.... And of the reasons why I do. I am entirely positive that I would suffocate without them. I'm in love with people and their hearts and vulnerabilities and stories. It's my meaning. Without a doubt. 

I am feeling such a peace, which right now is a blanket of warmth for me to put over these past few bouts of unexplained anxiety. But then I was told to snap out of it and I did. 

This new year has brought so many emotions. I feel like a raw, real person again and even after almost a year, I am so refreshed and better off for it. 

Through the water, through the rain. 

To the soul of everything. 

Yes. Still rings true. Truer in my soul than it ever has before. 

The people to be thankful for are overwhelming to me. The connections and bonds I have within my relationships are absolutely my reason for being here and living this thing we call life. 

There's no meaning in anything else but in the love to have and show for others and to let them have for you. 

I'm in love with that.

For the one who's always there.

The healing power of a true friend.   It just boggles me.

How did I become so blessed and fortunate to have a friend in my life who, no matter what, I can always go to..... and who, know matter what, will always know exactly what I need?

I am so fortunate to have a friend like that.
A friend who is like family.
A friend who knows what's wrong before I even have to say it.
A friend who will assure me that everything will be okay.
A friend who will be stupid and dumb just to make me laugh.
A friend who will genuinely care and help out in whatever way I need.
A friend who won't let me justify, excuse, hide, or not face any single thing in my life.
A friend who will be brutally honest, even if it hurts.
A friend who will give me actual solutions and ways to fix the brokenness.
A friend who will bring up inside jokes just to bring a smile to my face as big as it was the first time.
A friend who will tell me to calm down when I'm freaking out. To calm down, and to breathe.
A friend who will stay up late on a week night talking with me just to make sure I'm okay.

Is there really anything else sweeter than that?

Anxiety levels down.  Sleepy levels up.  Comfort warmly accepted.

And I've turned that frown upside down, just like I was asked.

Thank you.  I can always count on you.

For the real.

This is another one of those times where words fail me. All I've done in the past 15 minutes is sit here and attempt a beginning to my thoughts. Probably at least 5 times. Before I can even finish a sentence, I delete it and start over again. It's times like these where I realize I've been so moved that words won't even do.

It is very rare when a person can leave such a mark on your soul. Hold such special places in your heart. And move you like not many people do.  Right off the bat after meeting them, even.

I get to be so fortunate to know a few. And to more recently have found another.

For the first time in a while I didn't feel alone in a crowd. Because of these very people. I didn't feel like I was forced to internalize the deeper, more complex things about me. Because of these very people, I felt like I can be real. And it's because they are real.

On my drive home today I couldn't help but be overwhelmed with gratefulness.  Not just for feeling welcomed in a crowd of people. But for the depth that they offered me this past week in return. For the real.

Tears streamed down my face and I knew that it was exactly a mixture between how moved I've been with these friendships and of the knowledge that I am having to say goodbye for a while with this new work schedule I have.

When people mean so much to me like this, even without knowing quite exactly why or how... it makes me wonder if I have done a good enough job showing them exactly what they've done for me.  If I've done a good enough job showing them how much they mean to me.  How much I love them.  It's in those moments where I just want to pick up the phone and spill the beans. Even if it brings a good cry.

The best part is that I know each and every one wouldn't take it as anything but real.

I am such a fortunate woman to have people like this in my life. Changing me every day and reminding me who I am, why I'm here, and that I'm loved.

This one's for the real.

On 10 years of a missing childhood.

I still have yet to understand the complex intertwining depths of life and love and friendship. How one person can have so much soul. How one moment can bring such a significant impact on one heart.

To be flooded by a rush of memory and an explosion of heartbeat is something only the people involved could understand. Rarely does a person know what it's like to be close to someone outside of family who you have known your entire, entire life. And what it means to be back at that very place where it all started. The adventure, the laughter, and the tears.

In 2003 I thought my childhood was over.  Really, the life I knew truly was. Being forced into a new world, new place, new relationships. It shaped me into the person and writer I am today, but never once have I stopped looking back and wondering what would've happened to the end of my childhood if life hadn't taken me to such a different path than I had planned for myself.


But yet here I am, back to 31st Street with the same friends I grew up with and all I can do is shake my head and smile.

The truest of true.

There are just those people. Those certain special people that affect you in such a way that you KNOW, no matter what you do or say, you will never be able to convey to them exactly what they mean to you. 

For me, the Lemons and the Arhnolds are those people. 

They have a part of my heart that nobody will ever be able to have. They have touched a part of my soul that nobody will ever be able to touch. It's because they know me. They love me. And there is not a single memory I have from growing up that doesn't have them in it. 

They were and still are, in every way, my family from another family. Our neighborhood is my home. 

I was blessed with the truest of childhoods. And now as an adult, I am blessed with the truest of friends. 

❤

There's a place that they call heaven.

I am in love with the mountains.

With the raging waters and the big, strong, tall mountains.

There really was no other way to explain it. The beauty I saw in just about everything was enough to leave me feeling speechless for the entire day. Yet somehow all I could do was talk, laugh, and sing loud to the music and throw my head out the truck window in the wind. There is no better way to go adventuring in the countryside than the time spent that day on highway 20. There is no better way than that to live life.

I felt like I was in a painting that came to life, only with more color and more meaning and more truth. Every corner we took gave us newer and even more beautiful views, if that was even possible. Even an old wooden fence on a logging road spoke beauty to my soul. It's like I was in a story, or a dream, or something.

Waterfalls depicted the raging passion my heart has for love and for life. The mountains made me feel so small yet so strong in who I am. The hills almost moved through the wind and the sun as they whispered secrets to me. The occasional wildlife reminded me that I was on planet earth and not on some distant place where nothing bad existed in the world. That's how I felt though. Like I had escaped to some paradise that only I knew about.

Heaven. At least a slice of it.