Serious talk

I'm not sorry that I didn't get the chance to post these three pictures last night. Because I also wanted to write a post about raw, real life. The ache of it sometimes. How life often doesn't feel picturesque, it doesn't come out even. How certain times of day, week, month, year.... just feel wrong. My humanity can feel so frail, and the balance between over-productivity and a drifting emptiness seems tenuous and suffocating.

I didn't want to just publish my daily post, with pictures of my lunch, yoga, and worship time, in a way that didn't acknowledge how desolate I felt yesterday. It is important to me to be clear about this. My day was every bit as peaceful, beautiful, and productive as these photographs suggest. And they are the snapshots I choose to hold onto. And yet my inner life, my heart, inside my locked room, I was desperately, achingly sad; tearful, purposeless; unable to see my way to finding joy, or living for God, or making a life. Beneath a looming lie that I will never feel satisfied or safe.

And this, my friends, is why I study and train; soak in story, truth, and beauty. So that, like the heroine in a great novel, I can take a long breath, look the villain in the eye and say levelly, 'I don't believe you.'

Anne Shirley wasn't so wrong when she spoke of the depths of despair. It isn't only dramatics that bring on such feelings over 'small matters' of misunderstanding, or loneliness, or being at odds with the world or yourself. She had seen real grief. And I think most of us who have faced it ourselves will agree that the depths do not always come during crisis. They resurface when we feel vulnerable again. Or when we are next rejected or rebuffed. Or when we are left to make an impossible decision, unaided.

"It's nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one's heart, like treasures. I don't like to have them laughed at or wondered over. And somehow I don't want to use big words any more. It's almost a pity, isn't it, now that I'm really growing big enough to say them if I did want to." -Anne

There are many reasons why we stop talking about the dearest things to our souls. The hardest days of our lives. The realest pain, or the most foundational joys and motivations. The biggest things: both glorious and terrible. But this is how real people feel and think, from their gut. With drive and emotion and story enough to shake the universe. 

I love the quote in National Treasure "'People don't talk that way, you know' ... 'No. But they think that way.'". That concept has resonated with me ever since. It is how I see the world. Why would I limit myself to shallow topics, quench gut-honesty, avoid being deadly serious or riotously funny? The world is. Our minds are.  

Its why we turn to music, and poetry. It's one reason I write. So that I needn't worry if I'm too much. If this is the moment or the person. I don't mean I don't weigh my words. I still value tact and timing. Speaking the Truest Things, isn't the same as talking Unfiltered. Every step of growth teaches me more of grace and balance; how love can cover over; how hope can eclipse. But I still want to talk about the Honest, real-life, gut-level stuff. From what motivates us, to what tears us down. The days in the trenches, and the moments that feel heavenly in the truest sense.

I want to be the eccentric old lady who has learned the art of saying exactly what she thinks without making anyone feel lesser. 

And I want to be the young-ish woman now who knows how to say, life isn't all blogmas and sunshine. It doesn't make those two things any less important, or prominent here. And this post isn't for everyone. But if you're there with me, you know.

And so, when the waves crash and everyone you know is grieving....

These I have loved:

 

a ship in full sail

a new-old blue teapot

yogic "ocean breath"

avocado-spinach "quesadillas"

Frankencense, Lavender, Bergamot

 Books as gifts

a new version of an old favorite song

Jane Eyre, Jo March, Anna Moray, Lizzie, Anne

writing

trees

deep hip stretches (ywa ftw)

 fur and fleece, in wintertime

caring for my cashmere sweaters on laundry day

Daisy Dalrymple

wireless earbuds

honey cake

 

"I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils." -Jane Eyre