Dared.

I moved. I lifted myself up off the floor. I pushed beyond my walls of insecurities, doubts, fears and barriers. And it feels similar to my soul being just, completely freed. 

I'm in this floating world of freeing air feeling nothing but weightlessness. A calm silence of a chaotic storm in my heart. 

I don't know what the implications are of this newfound freedom, but in the midst of the fear I am ready. I am ready to feel, ready to fear, ready to love, ready to be broken to be the whole person I've been needing to be for so many years. 

It is time. And it's now or never. 

To be known.

Oh, the dreadful disruptive nightmares! When they make me wake up hysterical and irrational in the middle of the morning, I can't help but remember old memories of night terrors as a younger person. The violence and fear and lack of control are the most prominent feelings that overtook me as I woke, and it felt so real it was like I could've actually been there experiencing it. The brain is an awful and wonderful thing all at once.

But repeating those words in my head throughout the day is a peaceful answer and calming solution to the nightmare panic problem.

We are real.  The dream is not real. Everything is okay. 

What gets me is when someone is so real with their responses that it stops me in my tracks and makes me have to catch my breath through the moment of real. That's what you did.  Anybody can say it'll be okay. Anybody can say oh it was just a dream. Anybody can say anything, but when the words are sincere, authentic, thoughtful, and completely and totally tailored to the person they are talking to.... that's real. And that's what I latch onto because it makes me not disappear.  It makes me seen. And heard.  And known. And cared for. And almost, just, embraced in a way. Like I'm being held, anxieties eased and fears erased. 

Thank you for that.   It's what saves my soul every day from indifference and disappearance.

We are real.
And I've got it on repeat.

Joy is.

Tears of loneliness brushed away by a stroke of serendipity, a late night of perfect chance.
Hours of good conversation over entirely too much coffee.
Burying the world between the pages of writing and art and everything else.
Soul searching and discovering ways not to disappear.
Clothes that still smell of coffee and the sea after a moment when time no longer mattered.
Being somewhere that is home, and knowing that home in a soul is the best home there is.

Only of depth

The moment when the pieces and meanings of this life in the universe come together so serendipitously.. with a beauty only those experiencing the same thing could ever understand... it makes me want to grasp that feeling and never let go. In the past 24 hours I have been more ecstatic, inspired, and alive than I have in a long time. 

It had begun wonderfully as it was, but when the world decided to expand its grace and beauty to catch my heart in its tracks I couldn't help but let the tears flow through my smile from there. 

Being the deep person that I am, I live for lasting moments like this. For something real and authentic. For souls worth knowing and worth loving. To be understood at a level deeper than a superficial "oh I get it". To be understood at a profound level that shakes my very soul with a meaning so beautiful. A true legacy. A purpose, a connection. I know not of anything superficial. Only everything of depth. 

These things make me a thorough unbeliever in coincidence and I love it. 

There is no more room for loneliness in this crazy place I call my heart. 

It's gonna be a lonely day.

This is one of those lonely days.   Within one week my entire view on my life has switched and while I like the new perspective, new energy, it also puts me in a position where I don't know what to do with it.

With that change, I get stuck in a corner of loneliness that only laughter and friendship can kill. I have no outlet for this profound return to my normal self.   I feel like it's a crisis, when I'm stuck between two possible worlds, one that I have lived for years and haven't liked, and one that I am in love with that I want nothing more than to live in.

What is stopping me from jumping two feet into this new energy, new life, new view of myself?  Or should I say, what is stopping me from returning to what I know best of myself?

Normal is as normal does

Throughout stressful and difficult times I've been finding my outlets in different places lately. At least, what I thought was different places.

As I was listening to some Rage this afternoon, I realized that as I grow as an adult finding my outlets and my means of stress relief, I am not finding it in different places.

In fact, I've been finding it in all the same places I used to find it in.

Before judgments.
Before insecurities.
Before worrying about what others would think of me.

I am finding it in my angry music.
I am finding it in my comforting foods, teas, socks, and books.
I am finding it in my own punk, my own self expression of hair and clothes and belief systems.
I am finding it in other realities, in make-believe places that I choose to believe to be real in my heart.
I am finding it in my truest nerd friendships, my writer and reader friends, my bloggers.
I am finding it in my seclusions in nature, my writing, my connections to creatures.

Somehow along the way I lost that.  Was "taught" and "molded" by society that angry music is bad, that fandoms and nerdcore is a crutch, that self-expression is weak, that choosing to have and embrace an identity won't change the fact that my identity is anxiety.

But that's wrong, and somehow along the way through college I began to think that way.
That it's just the way it is.
That you just have to power through it.
That you can't have these outlets and be okay.
That you must listen to The Man and go along with it, and hold it in, and not admit to weakness.

No, that's wrong.

Now it all boils down to doing exactly what I want. Saying no when I want to say no, listening to my Rage when I want to listen to my Rage, and escaping in whatever worlds I want to escape in.

I'm not delusional. I'm not irrational.

I'm normal ole me.

That little girl.

I am that little girl.

The little girl who would have tea parties with little cups and teapots.

The girl who wanted to stay up late watching movies with mom and eating snacks.

The tall lanky girl who's always been bossy and passionate and a little bit awkward in her own skin.

The girl who would run to her father screaming "Daddy!" as he walked in the door home from work.

The girl who walks around with a book in one hand and an apple in the other. 

The girl who looks out for her younger siblings.

The girl who played music to breathe.

The girl who's in love with Orca whales.

I was that little girl at five years old, and I was that little girl at 12.

Now at 24, I'm having a hard time trying to see what is different. And I realize nothing is. I am that little girl, and I probably always will be.

Growing up, I realize it's not about growing up. It's about being who you are and who you've always been. It's about not changing from that child-like, free and fun nature - for the world can do you no wrong.

Even now as an adult, riddled with adult hardships, adult responsibilities, and adult hurts… I realize that the only way to fix them or overcome them is to be that little girl.

I think we as a group of adult humans have got it all wrong. It's not about growing up and letting go of that five-year-old girl and her passions and free spirit. It's about being her in a 24-year-old world.

I've got a little bit more wisdom, a little bit more broken pieces, and a little bit more story telling to do than I did at five.

But in the end I am me, no matter what age. The piano-playing, Orca-loving, free-spirited, book-reading, family-hugging, tea-drinking girl.

And boy do I love her.