because i love it.

raise your words.

raise your words, not your voice. it is rain that grows flowers, not thunder. 

-rumi

on a train saturday afternoon a friend said something that made me realize how lucky i am to have her in my life. 

"i'm so glad you're saying how you feel." 

to have someone in your corner encouraging you as you take baby step by bigger step to finding and becoming yourself.

i have a lot of these someones.

for the longest time i didn't say how i felt. then i did and most of it was sad, but i was saying the words, heavy and sad as they were. and the lifting them from my bones helped. in time, it helped. now i feel so much joy and gratitude in my life that i can't stop saying it out loud. i want to say it all the time.

this has been my path. messy and hard and dark. but light always came through the cracks, even when i wasn't able to see it. when i wasn't ready to see it. this is the start. my path is not over yet.

there's so much light in my life. but there's also some dark. those are the things i can't see or predict or control. and learning to accept and embrace both the light and the dark is something that takes time. it's hard. i believe and hope that time and learning make things less hard.

i acknowledge my feelings. i articulate them. i write them down. all of these things give the words power.

sometimes people don't like when you stop being who you were. they count on you for certain things. this is what we do. we need people to be who they are. we want them to stay this way. that's something you must accept. 

you cannot always be everything to everyone. 

we belong to ourselves first.

joan didion said, "i write entirely to find out what i'm thinking, what i'm looking at, what i see and what it means. what i want and what i fear.” 

raise your words. give yourself that power.

this is how you love yourself. you find your sweet spot.

it's the front row of spinning class, your church, one of them. you push, even on the mornings you spend more time looking at the clock than the instructor. you got yourself there. you're supposed to be uncomfortable. you hear these words. uncomfortable means work means movement means change means growth means you keep pushing. it does not mean pain. there is a difference. pay attention to the difference. life is sometimes pain, but mostly pushing. you offer a prayer: let me leave here stronger than when i walked in. help me remember this is within my reach, always. this is how you love yourself.

it's sitting in your last graduate class, completely disagreeing with what the person across the room is saying. and making it known. it's hearing their thoughts, but defending your own. there is always something to learn. there is always more than one way to to see something. listen completely and then go to work. speak your truth. this is how you love yourself.

it's watching basketball at a bar with your boyfriend and four of his best friends, people he's known most of his life. with a beer and a really good onion-loaded burger in front of you. a table with so much laughter and history and warmth you could sit there for days. you see future glimpses of this table, full of even more love. you look forward to these days. this is how you love yourself.

it's bonnie raitt on a loop. this is how you love yourself.

it's wrapped up in blankets and warm sweaters in bed watching an excessive number of west wing episodes. it's realizing that hours upon hours of this show make you speak faster. and sometimes want to debate. you laugh at all of this. you pay attention to the smart and sharp writing. you remind yourself that this is your goal, your path. you're getting there. this is how you love yourself.

it's saying out loud, over and over, how you feel. it's owning your words and feelings. it's loving yourself enough to give voice to them. it is possible to change how you feel. and the first step to changing how you feel is saying how you feel. this is scary and this is hard, which is why most people don't. some days you won't want to. that's okay. being present and paying attention to yourself, your soul, being kind to yourself takes practice and time. give yourself the time. this is how you love yourself.

it's pouring a cup of coffee on sunday morning and feeling a tug on your leg. it's smiling and scooping eva up into your arms. it's a silent prayer, for all of this. this is how you love yourself.

it's acceptance on a bus at 5:30 in the morning. it's closing your eyes, nodding your head, holding your hands, and vowing to have more quiet in your life, in your head. beautiful things happen in the pockets of quiet we allow ourselves. give yourself more of these moments. you deserve them. happiness is a choice, so is forgiveness. these things take time and work and grace. all of us are capable of growing in grace. don't forget to remind yourself. daily. this is how you love yourself. 

i love women who write well. especially those who sing.

makes me want to go for a long drive. again.

i love that feeling.

the things we can and cannot control.

i woke up this morning in a really bad mood. a heavy feeling sat on my chest until i got out of bed. it stayed most of the morning.

these days happen when you're waiting for phone calls and hoping for good news and praying every spare moment you've got. when you're holding your breath and whispering please please please while you wash your face and pour your coffee and get on the train and go about your day. when you're in the middle of two dozen things you can't control.

i like control, order, structure. i often think it'd be easier to control every aspect of my life.

life is pretty much in the grays for the most part and if you insist always on black and white you are going to be very unhappy. 

-the last kiss 

the line from this movie has always stayed with me. i'm a black and white person. i like knowing where things stand and my place in them. 

life doesn't work this way.

our days and our plans are not things we construct from pages in a book. a life is not something you order off a menu. you can organize everything down to the day and to the second, but sometimes something happens and gets in the way.

life. 

you cannot anticipate every moment.

this is a blessing.

give up the need to control every moment. holding your breath won't change the outcome of a day except make you tired.
 

life is not a string of wonderful days. it is high and low and ugly and gratifying and heavy and we find ourselves in the middle.

pay better attention to the life happening around you, the signs the universe is giving you.

hearing a waitress sing the word "faith" during a mavis staples song. watching her bounce from table to table singing and smiling.

your favorite bob marley song, the one that gives you chills, listen to it. listen again. believe the words. have faith in the words.

spend less time being annoyed by people on the train and the sidewalk. they have nothing to do with you or the direction of your day. unless you choose this.

choose better.

sometimes a bad day is just a bad day. let it go and start again. 

keep working. don't give up. pray that you'll be able to handle the hard and scary parts. keep yourself open to all of it. this is how one creates a life. and share the hard and scary with the world. scream these parts. scream them and let them go.

on getting there.

a woman i know recently talked about going to dinner without any thought of calories or fat or any of those distractions that often appear when one goes to a restaurant and sits down to a menu.

i was jealous. 

jealous because i'm not in that place. i've never been in that place. jim assures me i can get to that place when i learn to "relinquish control."

those two words scare me. they scare me because i can't imagine doing it. i don't know how.

i read this woman's words and thought, i look forward to that day. i look forward to the day when i can sit down to a menu and not feel stress. i look forward to the day when i am not so acutely aware of food and how many calories are in this pasta vs. that pasta vs. this sandwich that it consumes an entire meal/day/life. i look forward to the day when i don't think, "which is the lesser of two evils?" 

i look forward to the day when i fully forgive myself. because i haven't. and i often wonder if i'll ever be able to. i know i'm the only one who can answer that. 

juggling awareness and control is a dance. i don't know how to have one without the other.

i look up menus before going to new restaurants. i know ahead of time what i'll order. i have a plan. this is a necessity. this relentless need for control comes after the long-standing absence of it. 

it's all about letting go. 

letting her go.

letting yourself breathe.

fear is a hard thing to shake especially when we won't loosen our grip.

but sometimes i am able to eat dinner and enjoy what's on my plate, savor what i'm choosing to feed my body. and sometimes it's a whole bunch of chocolate because stressful days happen and stressful days add up.

but it's gotten easier. crazily, thankfully, somehow where i am, today, is easier than three years ago, five years ago, ten years ago. i have faith it will continue to get easier. 

forgiveness takes time. acceptance takes time.

food is not the enemy. our minds are far more dangerous than anything we put on our plates.

what i've learned, from molly.

i'm starting a new series on the blog and naturally, it's a list. i'll be writing about different people and what they've taught me. it's one small way to say thank you.

molly is one of the first people i go to. for just about everything.

she's the one who convinced me i would love uic. she was right. she's the one who convinced me to go on match.com last may. again, wise decision to listen to her. we sign up for runs together. we stand at the start line, fist bump, then go do our own things, and meet at the finish line.

she's my neighbor and one of my biggest cheerleaders. she calls me on everything. we all need people who will do this for us. some of my favorite talks have been over tea at her kitchen table.

she's smart and hilarious. and very quick. this is why i ask her so many questions. 

what jewelry should i wear with this dress?
how should i word this email?
what should i do about x, y, and z?
why does rihanna continue to behave so stupidly?

in no particular order, these are the things molly has taught me over the years:

running is something you do for yourself. it's not about everybody else, so stop making it about everybody else.

learn to lighten up. learn this now. 

loving yourself and your body takes time. give yourself this time.

always say yes to a second or third glass of wine.

byob makes any place ten times better. 

p.y.t. (pretty young thing) by michael jackson is perfect for dancing to work.

avoiding things=anxiety will follow. don't do this to yourself.

stress can be controlled. breathing helps. 

loyalty and honesty are everything.

tea makes everything better.

your gut will never let you down.

stop dressing like an old woman. show your legs.

beyonce. always.

the bigger the jewelry the better. 

be vocal about what you want and need: from friends, partners, and jobs.

and my favorite, do you. aka put yourself first. other things take care of themselves that way.

a good question.

yesterday i was asked a really good question.

what inspires you?

i smiled, happy the person asked.

i replied, people who are hungry for life. people who want to make good things happen for themselves, people who want. awareness, being awake is a powerful thing.

i could've added to that list for half an hour. i'm inspired by a lot of things.

oprah, anne lamott, my spin instructors, our always-cheerful ups driver at work, jim, beyonce, joan didion, my friends, my family.

what inspires you?

on my feet, trying to find the joke.

for the past two weeks i've had no less than five saved blog posts sitting in here. sickness hit right after christmas. then it left. my final quarter of graduate school started. and the sickness came back. with a vengeance. 

"you have both strains of the flu. i've never seen that."

never what you want to hear from your doctor.

i'm at about 93% now and i stopped being contagious on friday. i feel so much better than i did just a few days ago. im thankful for expensive miracle medicine, dayquil, vicks, cough drops, hot tea, mrs. grass soup, the west wing on netflix, and the wonderful people who've been taking care of me. 

as i sit here with coffee and the new issue of oprah i came across an essay by veronica chambers titled, there's a joke in there somewhere. there isn't a link available online, but i encourage you to go to your local walgreen's/cvs/barnes & noble, turn to page 120, and read it.

chambers writes about getting sick with organ failure after giving birth to a sick/underweight daughter. she writes about losing her youngest brother in a car accident. she writes about getting a phone call from her chaplain to inform her her husband had been the victim of a hit-and-run. 

she responds, "are you f-ing kidding me?" 

i love the honesty of that response. to her chaplain. honesty and anger and fragility. and humanness.

she writes about her husband's approach to everything: jokes. 

we laughed every day, and despite all that we had endured, i was happy. 

it's important to try and find the jokes in things. like your boyfriend calling you "patient zero." or your doctor needing to stick a cotton swab up your nose a second time because you flinched and freaked out the first.

and you start to cry and laugh at the same time and as you apologize to her you say, "there has got to be a better way to do that test. i'm sorry. i've felt so shitty lately." 

and your doctor says, "i know." and puts her hand on your leg.

we're in a lot of trouble if we forget how to laugh at things.

i am not comparing my past year to that of ms. chambers. no one deserves that much pain. pain happens. it's unavoidable. it's our response to the pain that matters. 

she described that year as "soul-sucking." i will borrow that expression. so much good has visited me this past year. but my soul is tired and it feels a bit cracked in spots. 

i feel those cracks slowly, sitting-at-a-stopped-train-while-you-continue-to-peer-down-the-tracks-slowly sealing themselves. 

i was supposed to meet with jim on thursday. still being contagious we spoke on the phone. we talked for forty minutes and like clockwork i felt better after we spoke.  

"you've got to take care of your body to take care of your spirit."

it's funny how easy it is to forget these things.

"get well and go from there."

so here i am, at the start of a new year, once again getting back on my feet, trying to remember to laugh.

it will be.

“hope - 

smiles from the threshold of the year to come, 

whispering 'it will be happier'...” 

alfred lord tennyson.

on resolutions.

i used to be a habitual maker of resolutions, grand resolutions. never small ones. the lists were long. they had everything to do with my body and nothing with my heart.

time has changed this.

during the bad years they were: i will lose 100 pounds. i will stop going to mcdonald's twice a day. i will stop eating a bag of reese's peanut butter cups over the course of an evening. i will go for a walk without fear of an asthma attack.

in the "better" years: i will lose 25 pounds. i will lose 15 pounds. i will go to the gym seven days a week. i will reach this weight by this day and stay there until the day i die. no excuses. anything less is failure.

there was no love in those resolutions. no love and no actual plan. having the dreaded thought of, i will lose x number of pounds by x date is a seat at overwhelming, table for one.

i was on the elliptical at 6:30 this morning and i felt different. i noticed this because i know what it means to pay attention. my body felt different. my waist is smaller. things are getting tighter. i'm getting healthier. i thought all of these things as i moved up and down and challenged myself. i dragged myself out of bed at 4:30 to get on a bus at 5:30 and make it to the gym that's forty five minutes away. it was fifteen degrees outside when i left. but i went. i went because i'm a better person after i go. i go for my heart. and this in turn trickles down to my body. we all win.

it's when you can actually feel yourself, your body changing, that you realize how powerful awareness is. because you remember what you were like before it.  

be present for your life. it's not enough to show up. be present and participate.

i believe in resolutions, realistic and kind ones. i believe in keeping the promises we make to ourselves.  

this year is a good one. 

i resolve to stay on the path i'm on: spinning, running, boxing, swimming. i know where i'd like to be and while it does involve a number, more than that, it's a feeling. a place of genuine health and happiness. some days i am there, fully there. other days i'm knee deep in stress.

i resolve to remember those days are fleeting.

i resolve to walk more, as often as i can, as far as i can. to just walk. walking heals us. one foot in front of the other, with music in your ears or just the birds. walk. just walk.

i resolve to say yes more. to the things that make me come alive, laugh until i can't breathe, and feel light.

i resolve to continue to say no to the things that do none of these.

i resolve to eat more dark chocolate and less cheese. less diet coke too.

i resolve to give myself a break if i want chinese or mexican.

i resolve to forgive myself for the second margarita that is so wonderful because it's so rare. 

i resolve to read more and floss more and be better about following the off season moves of the white sox.

i resolve to write more and to find more places to share these words. i resolve to find ways to help my fellow women of this world.

i resolve to continue to kiss ben for no reason. 

i resolve to make plans that involve swimsuits and fedoras and road trips and copious amounts of good music.

i resolve to remember to continue to fight for what i want and deserve, but i resolve to find balance in this, in having patience with myself and the world around me as i carve my place in it.

my year.

beyond ready to make beautiful things happen.

(via)