2.23.23 Earned

I like the holes I earn myself–the worn denim jacket and the life I had to live with just enough fray to make it happen. I like the scars that tell stories and the incidents and accidents that turn into tales.

The more I see of life, and the more I genuinely, intentionally try to live it, the more I see that we are given so many opportunities. Every day. Every week. Sometimes minute-by-minute. We are given first and second chances, happen-by encounters, and “fancy meeting you here” moments that offer us glimmers of possibility. Like catching the glint off of a fallen penny, waiting head’s up for you to claim its luck, these opportunities shine coppery-gold, the color of hope personified. 

So what about you … what holes are you going to punctuate into your imperfect, beautiful life?

Elle

2.12.23 A Special Request

This past week I got the sweetest request! My best friend called and said that her son, my godson, was chosen to read a poem in class. She said that he would really like to read one of his auntie’s poems, and could I please send her one. I decided to write one instead. This one is for you sweet boy! I hope you read it with confidence, knowing YOU inspired every word.

If you know anyone as bright as this perfect combination of curiosity and wonder … well … I happen to know he has the most generous heart and would be most willing for you to share it.

His is a smile full of mischief and eyes that twinkle
just so … bright blue and curious

He is wonder-filled
in love with each surrounding he surrounds himself with–daring to daydream
wanting to wish on every star

His joy is the kind that’s contagious
the sort that inspires others to be as happy as he is, like a little beam of sun
he lights every conversation with bright words
that come fast and free–
firefly words that make magic when they’re spoken aloud

He is a difference-maker (and a risk-taker)
equally sensitive and strong

What a perfect world we must live in, if for no other reason
than that he
is in it

2.7.23 Seven Small Truths: Day Seven

“Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.” Mary Jean Iron

So here we are … day seven of seven days of mini truths. As important as all of the admissions I’ve shared have been to me, I think this one might be one of the most true and most necessary for us all to acknowledge, if for no other reason than to prove that we need one another.

DAY SEVEN Truth: Heaven is entirely too far away. Recently, I had a sweet follower ask me if I had any pieces I’d suggest she read to help her healing heart … she shared with me that she was still desperately missing her husband who passed away. My spirit entirely shattered, because what do you say? I have written about loss so many times over the years, and yet there is no consolation for grief that does more than offer a fleeting moment of warmth in the seemingly endless cold.

My faith has been the only consolation that ever offered me any peace–knowing that this is not the end of the story … the relationship … the love. Knowing that on the other side of the star-dusted sky lies another chapter, another conversation, another chance to hold and be held across the galaxy. To me, so many times, that promise has kept my broken heart beating.

Whenever someone I care about loses someone they love, I pray that their memories remain fresh and present. I pray that their dreams be vivid and their sensorial recollections be distinct. It is never enough … but maybe, just maybe, it will suffice one more day. And if I, myself, am missing one of the loves of my life to the point I can hardly bear it–I pretend. I tell myself that I’ll see them soon–that we’re only a memory apart.

I believe our imaginations can be holy … that if we open ourselves up to the divine we were designed to hold, heaven inches closer to us. Let hope be your light. It will be enough.

2.6.23 Seven Small Truths: Day Six

“I promise if you keep searching for everything beautiful in the world, you will eventually become it.” Tyler Kent White

I find that I am starting to worry that I have too much to say to squeeze into only seven days of small truths. There are so many things I have begun to realize about myself, and this life, and the people I am able to have as a central part of it. As funny as it seems, I feel like the more I look back on my string of days, of important milestones and golden moments, it is never the events I plan for that end up being the memories that stay.

DAY SIX Truth: It is the unplanned, unremarkable moments that leave the most significant impressions. Though I am the product of a million, magically curated memories … from walking down the aisle and long-planned vacations, to orchestrated family photos and budgeted-for purchases finally realized–none of those make the final cut in the reel of my wandering mind. Instead, I find myself eyes-closed-captured by the moments I wouldn’t even have used my imagination to invent.

What a curious thing to realize that to this day, after twenty years of being together, one of the best days I ever had with my husband was a random Tuesday the first year we were married. We both took off of work and did everything and nothing at all. We went to a movie … we visited a caramel apple store … we walked the Hallmark-esque downtown street of the small town we were married in. And yet I remember it all, every sun-dappled sidewalk step.

What a revelation to acknowledge that even after all this time, the best part of teaching is when I receive an email from a kiddo who just needs to know I’m still there, like I promised I would be.

It took some looking back to realize, that as fun as they were, it was not the elaborate birthdays or graduations we plotted and perfected, but the freezing sideways-sleet soccer games, the dessert dates after dance practices, and the chocolate milk and toast Saturdays that would occupy the grandest places of my heart.

I thank God for the unplanned impressions–for the four leaf clover moments and puddle splashes. I thank him for the curled kitty sleeping on my lap and the puppy kisses I never deserve, but get anyway. I thank Him for the elaborate high-five routines and inside jokes that we can’t even remember the start of. For the first stars to catch my wishes, and the sound of the wind in the trees.

Yes … here’s to the best moments you never saw coming.

Please tell me one of yours!

Elle

2.5.23 Seven Small Truths: Day Five

“How strange to see the wrinkles on the sides of my eyes growing and getting deeper the older I get. I laugh. A lot. This is the proof. They are my scars of happiness.” – Tyler Knott Greyson

I am so grateful that this mini truth series is resonating with so many people. What a beautiful reality to recognize that we are not alone. Whether a kindred spirit reaching out, or someone helping me see their own personal truth, it has been a joy to converse with you. Speaking of joy, that’s today’s focus.

DAY FIVE Truth: Laughter and I are well acquainted. From teaching middle and high school for more than a decade, to having a particular talent for embarrassing myself, I’ve always found that the best way to take myself seriously is to laugh. The short and long term health benefits are one thing, but the contagious joy is quite another.

My grandmother was one of the people to teach this to me; her life was far from easy, but she approached each day with tenacity and laughter. She was a big believer of dancing in the kitchen, of watching I Love Lucy, and teaching me songs that she could only remember half of the words to. She loved to laugh, and her laughter filled the room, bubbling up and into and beyond any situation.

I once heard someone say that they didn’t have bad days, that they only had bad starts to good days. It isn’t that positivity is always the easy choice, but to me … it is the only choice. Intentionally choosing joy, pursuing laughter–it is a lifestyle I learned, and one I’m proud to practice.

What about you? How does laughter play a role in your day? What or who always brings you joy?

2.4.23 Seven Small Truths: Day Four

On this, day four … I share with you something that I am not entirely sure I want to. It’s personal. It hurts. And yet, I often feel that the struggles we go through, we are allowed to endure for two reasons: to prove we are strong enough to see the other side of them, or to use our developed strength to help someone else.

This is the truth I’d rather hide from than face, and sometimes–I do. It’s the truth I don’t want my mom or sister or daughter to read or know, even though I’m sadly aware they already do. It is the truth that makes me feel cliche … vain and weak. It is the truth I sincerely dislike about myself, but can’t deny.

So, just in case it is helping someone else be strong–here goes.

DAY FOUR Truth: I love myself … I don’t want to look like anyone else, but I’m still never ever satisfied with my reflection. I cannot remember a single time when there wasn’t something I thought I could improve. I am not proud of it. I want to be fully comfortable in my own skin. I often ask myself, “What if I just unequivocally loved this body of mine?” For about two seconds, I feel lighter, peaceful even … I almost give myself permission, then my posture resumes to full-shoulders-back, my tummy tucks in, my breathing shallows, and I instantly miss the feeling I just allowed leave of. Again.

Our imperfect pasts, our less-than-they-should-have-been decisions, have a way of becoming our own personal ghosts. They echo in the distance, mist-like on the good days–impermeable and haunting on the bad. The truth is, like millions before me (and sadly, millions after), the scars of my adolescent battle with Anorexia are as much internal as external. Though my body and mind are now healed–trained to recognize and pursue what is good and healthy … there are parts of my psyche that crave the shadows, the hollows between collarbone and spine.

The ghost of who I was (or wasn’t enough to keep at bay) keeps calling. And I turn away. Intentionally. Relentlessly. Because she was wrong. I was wrong. (And sometimes still am.)

Forgive me this truth?

I’d appreciate it, really.

Because most days, I’m still trying to forgive myself.

2.3.23 Seven Small Truths: Day Three

“… love covers over a multitude of sins.” – 1 Peter 4:8

I am so grateful you’re traveling with me on this short-and-sweet voyage. Traveling any distance is always better with company, and I have had so many remarkable conversations that have burgeoned out of this tiny truth series. Next stop? My very favorite thing of all time in the history of ever.

DAY THREE Truth: I love.

I love a lot.

Life. People. Places. Ideas. Travel. Books. Quotes. Dreams. Things I can explain, and even more, the things I can’t.

I love folklore, and legends. I love nature and creatures. I love the mistakes that have led me to the friends I adore, and the family that came from one right decision.

I love memories. Music. Mysteries. Faith and feelings. Passion and poetry. Questions, curiosities and the character I see in others.

I love, and love, and love.

And when the magic of living feels slippery, I dig in my heels, close my eyes, and open my spirit to what I know that I know that I know–at the essence and core of the fiber of my being …

LOVE is always the point. It is always enough, and I am enough because I am loved too.

Divinely.

Imperfectly.

Without deserving it … and wholly grateful in spite of the fact. 

Tell me kindred, what and who and how do you love?

Elle

2.2.23 Seven Small Truths: Day Two

Here we are, day two of my seven days of tiny truths. Again, as I look at these mini-declarations, I realize that they really are fairy insignificant wonderings of mine, and yet–somehow–I feel like they say a lot about who I am or have become. As I look over them, I’m not sure that they are good or bad or even anything in-between, but they’ve offered me self-reflection, so … I suppose that is something. At the very least, they’ve made me curious if I am alone, or if you too have mini-truths to share.

So here we go again!

DAY TWO Truth: Bouquets of flowers, though beautiful, tend to make me sad. They remind me of endings as they are usually given at the culmination of something, be it nostalgic, a milestone, or an event much more painful. They are the pretty punctuation to an event, anniversary, or life. Sometimes the too-sweet smell of the freshly cut blossoms immediately turns to a lump in my throat. When given flowers, I tend to flip and dry them so they become something eternally lovely, instead of something I must watch die. 

Is that weird?

Does it change anything if it is?

When I was a little girl, I attended many funerals. I think that is where it all began. Then it was performances. Then it was corsages. Then a series of wonder-filled events that I didn’t want to end, that did.

Maybe it’s less about flowers and more about the impermanence of beautiful things. Still … I recognize that beautiful things are sometimes so because they are impermanent. As Robert Frost said, “Nothing gold can stay.” Isn’t that what makes for the truly perfect moments, the magnificent colors and blooms … the fact that we know we are witnessing something precious and fleeting?

What about you? How do you feel about the bittersweetness of temporary treasures?

Gratefully yours,

Elle

2.1.23 Seven Small Truths: Day One

For the start of a new month, still relatively new to the year, I decided to give myself a little challenge to share seven days of small truths. I think honesty is not only rare, but undervalued. Though I’m not even sure these truths will matter to anyone, they matter to me, and so, at the risk of being too transparent, I plan to share them anyway!

Sometimes I am surrounded with truths about myself that even I don’t understand. And that in and of itself is the epitome of confusion, isn’t it? Truth. Something you know to be so, and yet … don’t necessarily comprehend. Be that as it may, here is the reality I find myself keeping company with. The what is always easier than the why, to be sure. I am forever working on my “why’s.”

C’est la Vie.  

DAY ONE Truth: I have little to no tolerance for shallow conversation. I find it tedious, needlessly exhausting, and–after about two minutes–yearn to “get to the good stuff.” I would 100% rather know the song to your life’s soundtrack than how work went for you today. I’ve never understood why we waste precious time with getting-to-know-you ice-breakers instead of starting out with relevance. Is it because we don’t trust one another with something real? Probably. Is it that we don’t trust ourselves to share something real for the fear of being judged. Even more likely. Still, I don’t think things need to be this way. I believe in the possibility to have genuine conversation that moves proverbial mountains, shakes the foundations of societal norms, and makes day-to-day conversations a whole lot more interesting. Imagine a world where, “Hi, how are you?” instead becomes, “Hi, if you had to name the purpose of your life today, what would it be?” Am I a naive optimist … 100%. But I’d still like to know. 🙂

What about you? Where do you lie on chit-chat? Could you idle and swim in the shallow end forever, or … like me … do you long for the deep end of discussion where substance and intention collide? If so, what question do you wish was a daily occurrence?

Forever curious,

Elle