self-love sunday

the right words to start this ramble are not at my fingertips.

(me and daises yesterday in san francisco sunshine)

this week was weird, right?

filled with heavy energy. i slept in weird cycles, experienced insomnia for the better part of the week, woke up foggy every day. an underlying sadness tinted the week.

i spent hours unloading into my journal. honest thoughts. confused thoughts. too many thoughts.

and saw my truth:
i am only honest in words, in writing.

i have so much to say to so many people. so many thoughts and feelings and conversations i want to vocalize. not necessarily pleasant ones, either. but each time i gather the strength and steadiness to open my mouth, it stays closed. those inflated words deflate, fall back to their homes in my chest, and i implode silently.

i am as emotionally developed as my seventeen-year-old self.

i’m too busy being nice, good, easy, to speak my truth, to find my voice and use it. as i explained to a friend the other day: “i am going through the teenage rebellion i never had.“

(although, ironically, i was very quick to share my opinion when i was a teenager)

or, maybe, more accurately, i am going through the quarter life crisis no one talks about. either way, i am a big ball of feelings with no outlet other than my pen and paper. everything inside me is screaming for release. i can’t be afraid of how other people react anymore. it’s not a burden i need to carry. it’s not one i want to carry. this lack of sense of self has me floating int a weird, uncomfortable, shaky place. i’m running around trying to find my self in other people.

i gotta get over this. i’m not as fragile as i keep telling myself.

this week, i’m shooting for honesty.

off the page.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: remember when i mentioned phantogram the other music monday? well, give the phantogram pandora station a listen. hot damn.)

(p.p.s: i haven’t felt like blogging at all this week.)

clean house, clean heart

i woke up writing poetry i forget now.

(a tree without leaves the other day on a walk)

a song rooted down into my conscious after the words disappeared with the morning fog.

limbs ached to express, to twirl.

(of course i obliged.)

i want to say i am proud of myself but that doesn’t sound right.

blissfully astonished does.

yes.

because i keep waking up.

every day.

i keep recommitting.

keep
breathing
reaching
expanding
shedding.

after dancing, after breakfast at noon, i confronted my closet.

threw away piles of clothing holding
the old me,
suffocating the present me
by living in trash bags just out of reach.

now i have two pairs of pants. three if you count my tie dye ones.

which i do.

anyway…

i’ve got a mountain to explore! it’s sunshiney outside and i’ve got little tolerance for sitting inside when it’s so beautiful out there!

namaste

zoe

funny moments in afternoons alone

i wrote this whole other serious post earlier.

(san francisco last week. pretty, pretty)

i suck at conclusions (whole other tangent) so, i took a break before writing it.

and took the opportunity of having an empty house with really awesome acoustics to belt it etta-james style.

you know the kind. sometimes equipped with dance moves.

yeah.

(yeah?)

eventually you laugh at yourself. (if you’re me).

because it’s funny to go from deeply frustrated to deeply light in like…an hour.

mostly though, it’s funnier you still pretend to sing to an audience.

even though the audience is your refrigerator and kitchen table.

namaste

zoe

to be real

that last post felt and sounded nothing like me.

(source)

for real.

like, really, in retrospect…what?

doling out skin care advice doesn’t sound like me. it’s not what i want to write, what my heart asks me to bare.

i continuously move away from the true nature of this blog: a means for me to cope (and, i guess, technically, an open journal for the anonymous).

to be honest, this blog is more for me than for anyone else. call it self-ish, it’s okay. i don’t feel self-ish. the internet offers virtual communities. so. this is a way for me to connect and start dialogues until, eventually, i can start ones with the people in my life face to face. call it practice.

you may wonder why i chose to post so candidly. i’d hoped by now you’d have picked up on the openness of my nature. i like to talk, discuss and, occasionally just kidding like all the time, to the dismay of friends and family, over analyze. sorry. that’s in my DNA make-up, too. i have always been interested in the answers behind the questions, in investigating. i like the nitty gritty in life. the shadowy details. some people don’t.

i am here for those who do. i am here to share this journey alongside yours, to connect to other humans experiencing the experience of life and living. because you know, it’s not easy. this whole living business.

skin care just isn’t on the agenda, kids.

i can’t wish away the feelings i feel. no matter how i try to avoid them, ultimately they’ll round a street corner on some tuesday afternoon and link arms with me again. talking about them talks me through them, before, finally, talking me out of them.

i did not ask for the life i landed. something or someone somewhere put me in the ‘really, really ridiculously lucky pile‘ and threw in some baggage for good measure. no one can be ‘really, really, really ridiculously lucky’.

every person carries sadness. did i not say that earlier this month? well. it’s time i start believing it. it’s time i start allowing that sadness, that anger, that nitty gritty, to be felt instead of covering it up with a superficial, poorly concocted happiness/gratitude blend. i can’t guilt myself out of experiencing authentic emotion anymore.

i’m done apologizing for what bubbles up, for being ashamed every time i sigh.

starting.

now.

namaste

zoe

self-love sunday

before i start a recap of sorts:

(flowers on a walk the other day)

today my little brother turns eighteen.

kind of like cinderella pulling her whole transformation, my brother is an adult now (though not in a dress and carriage-made-from-pumpkin), suddenly. an adult. like, legal. which is weird because i remember when he was born, how little he was in my own little arms.

to commemorate the occasion, i am making chili bread bowls, per his request. and cake. because birthdays are not birthdays without cake in my eyes.

yup.

anyway.

so, i am working on friendships. on connecting and reconnecting with people who truly, deeply matter. often times we chase friendships or people who clearly show no interest in slowing their retreat. we wonder, “why am i left behind?” while the solids in our lives trail us, wondering “why doesn’t she turn around?”.

confession: i am a die-hard chaser.

i pour attention and affection into friendships my intuition chirps are “one sided”. i did it in early friendships. i did it in high school. i did it in college. i do it now. worrying about how i stand in the lives of part-time friends prompts the burn of anxiety. of loneliness. of depression. it also hurts the real friendships i have, as those true sources of joy distance themselves, shaking their heads at my breathless game of catch and release.

slowly i am understanding the need to balance the energy i put into relationships, including the one i hold with myself. i cannot give away my reserves so quickly, so willingly, so entirely to people.

i spent a lot of time with old friends this week (ones from college and one from high school). i noticed the goofy ultra-dork reemerging. easily and naturally. there was never a sense of “am i good enough?“, only “god i missed this”. i did not experience a need to be anyone other than the person i am, to prove something my mind made up. there was no judgement. no anxiety. just a lot of laughter.

i know i am never alone. i know a lot of the time i think myself into a space for one and tell myself no one cares (not true). i am getting there, though. realizing i make myself alone when i concentrate on those part-time friends, when i forget all those beautiful people in my life who are, always, open and willing to embrace me when i need it the most, not when it suits their schedules.

do you ever find yourself worrying over relationships that bring you more unease than ease?

namaste

zoe

(p.s: did any of that make sense? i feel like that was a bunch of word-vomit.)

thoughts from long walks

i am currently waiting on cookies in the oven and kale chips in the dehydrator.

(on a walk the other day in sonoma county with a close friend)

a good metaphor for my life, don’t you think?

i’ve got no big message today. no deep, thought out words.

nothing is A-FUCKING-MAZING. and nothing is particularly soul crushing. i am merely existing today, enjoying the seventy-eight degree sun rays and the smells of my kitchen. i am reveling, simply.

last night i preformed poetry again. words direct from my heart. unlike last week, i showed up with a louder voice and more nerves. i stumbled a bit though i spent hours and hours burning the lines into my memory, talking to an empty house, the bay, passing cars and, finally, a circle of strangers. practice doesn’t always mean perfect. nothing means perfect because perfect doesn’t exist.

a funny thing happened when i finished and reclaimed my seat: nothing attacked me inside. yes, i shook and tripped over a few lines but that negative voice stayed locked inside. in fact, i heard nothing. just felt a sense of release and empowerment i am still trying to wrap my mind around. just thought, “i did it” quietly while the words of others filled the balmy san francisco evening.

i took a walk with my self and my headphones this morning. drank a decaf americano. danced the whole way home. thought and rethought those hopes i scribbled for the new-year.

i’ve spent a lot of time since we jumped into 2012 thinking i was a big fat failure. thinking i was doing nothing right, making no progress, only sliding, minute by minute, backward to a place i never wanted to see again.

today changed that.

as cars drove past me and sunshine soaked into my bare arms i understood: i am progressing. i never wasn’t.

i am opening my heart to the world, to people, to myself. i am shedding warped ideas of self and happiness. i am gaining a sense of peace and an understanding of life i never thought i would.

perfection has no place in my life anymore. i am reclaiming the person i used to be. the person i always was.

bumps and all.

namaste

zoe

i’m not sure about that bottle of pills

on tuesday i woke up at six for a doctors appointment i called salvation a month ago.

(photos of birds i take on long walks)

yet, even as i heard “chemical imbalance” and even when i picked up my first bottle of oblong blue pills, i did not feel saved. just skeptical. and mildly uncomfortable.

the mood swings i swing through scare me sometimes. leave me trembling underneath the question of “is this normal?” (really though, what the fuck is “normal”?)

in conversation where stories of sadness and hardship are traded, i realize how unbelievably human it is to struggle. my problems and issues shrink. i become one in a whole. we’re battling, collectively.

it’s just no one talks about it.

post-tuesday-morning-diagnosis i wandered. i walked. i smoked a bowl and sat in sunshine (because february think its spring). i breathed deep and practiced a few heart openers (got all warm-and-tingly in the chest. good signs). one thought sparked two hours of feverish writing. gentle contentment replaced heaviness. i smiled at the idea of knowing how to process.

but, as i am human, subject to an ever changing scenery of emotion, the mood shifted come nighttime. stubborn insecurities i cannot shake heated up cooled over anxiety. late-night sobs stuck to the hollow of my throat. i cried words and tears over my journal. wrote furiously into pages before occupying the land of dreamers and their dreams.

naturally, i woke up today agitated. to an alarm calling for my attention. to a lack of voice. to bitterness. to another long car ride filled with music and sadness. to a therapy appointment actually scheduled for next week. to more tears, to hands too jittery from coffee i never drink, to heart filled up with fear and loathing…

to, eventually, suddenly, nothing but pure joy.

wednesday morphed into endless laughter, seventy-something degree weather, unbounding love.

and i realized:
the more i feel, the more i release.

and i realized:
sadness is normal. crying is normal. anger is normal.

because i realized:

this is the human experience.

this is okay.

i’ve got a bottle of pills now. mood-stabalizers. if i am being honest, i will say i am scared to take them. i am scared to lose this ability to feel, something i just gained access to after years of feeling nothing. i am curious about this lost anger and misplaced sadness.

also, i’m not as scared of my feelings as i was a month ago, on the desperate day i called around for someone to grant me reprieve from my mind. i just feel more human. and, oddly, more connected to people. i’ve knocked some perspective into my life, opened up the dialogue, listened and listened and listened to friends pour their souls out because every one needs an open ear. simply focusing on the people i love and opening up to hear their frustrations has been enlightening. suddenly, i am not alone. suddenly, this isn’t all about me anymore. because it never was. we’re all going through troubles together. despite those quiet moments of deep loneliness, you are, truly, never alone.

life, pills or no pills, keeps happening.

every second i breathe, i pulse. over the course of my waking hours i am one emotion and another. i am human.

and i think i’m okay with that.

namaste

zoe

(p.s: yes, i am going to take the pills, just to see what happens. it’s an avenue i think i need to explore, if only to say, “yes” or “no”.)

self-love sunday

i don’t even know where to start today.

a lot happened this week. words, however, are not lending themselves to me, rendering me a writer without expression. i’m just a big ball of feeling.

i am learning to trust my feelings, to question my thoughts. to listen to the whispers of the heart, not the analytical murmurings of a brain. i forget i live in my heart, too.

today, on two feet with arms stretched to the sky, i am open to the world and the universe and abundance. last night, a momentary ‘pop’ released pain in my left shoulder. pain i’ve carried for months. the night before i went to a restorative yoga class and cried. i am releasing.

i am creating space.

i am opening.

i keep thinking, “i don’t know what ought to be.”

over and over.

among other things.

(found in jan spiller’s book cosmic love…or astrology for the soul, i can’t remember. i stumbled across this the other day in a bookstore. i sat there and read for an hour).

love inflates the emptiness felt feelings leave behind.

i breathe deeper. fuller.

there is still salt in the sea water of my life. still waves i navigate. but i am buoyed to a warm, steady happiness.

i am learning how to float.

what are you learning?

namaste

zoe

(p.s: thanks for the comments on the last post. you’re all so supportive and awesome. thankyouthankyouthankyou. i have a lot more to say about voice and speaking and discovering. soon enough!)

can we talk about gifts?

so, remember when i set the intention to be more open?

(source)
to, you know, receive the abundance of my life?

(i blabbered about that, right?)

well, can we talk about a the gift the universe dumped on me today?

it was kind of fucking great.

remember when i got home from burning man and talked and talked and continued to talk about dancing? i am pretty sure in the middle of all that talk, i declared pretty passionately “i found my soul on the dance floor“?

well. i really wasn’t kidding.

’cause i recognized my soul again today on the hardwood dance floor of my kitchen.

did i ever tell you i wanted to be a ballerina when i was kid? (like almost every other five-year-old girl). but i devoted my body to soccer instead. years and years of nothing but chasing a ball. yes, i loved it. but i still loved dance, too.

(source)
i envied a childhood friend who danced ballet as long as i played soccer. she claimed she wasn’t the best, something about her feet. i always thought she was beautiful.

and free. so, so free.

did i ever tell you how much i hate reality t.v shows but how much i love, love, love so you think you can dance? and how i cry every episode? the only formal dancing i’ve ever seen was a ballet in first grade (i fell asleep) and the dancing of my childhood friend. so of course i sat for long, long weeks in front of the television, pointing always to every dancer and saying, “that’s fucking beautiful.” (because i am really graceful, too).

did i ever tell you when i was a kid i created dances with my friends and performed them for my mom? and the kids at my day care? (surprisingly, i had a lot of friends).

did i ever tell you how i believe in past lives (more on that another time)? i do. and i was definitely a dancer a one point. i feel that down to my bones. (why else would my knees hyper extend and why else can i balance so well and make nice lines? useless talents?)

so, no wonder i envy dancers. dancers are artists who create with their bodies. there are stories in those moves. colors. images. i wanted that.

(source)
last summer i reconnected with the dancer in me again. we rejoiced in an open desert. then, she left.

and came back today. we visited, fell in love all over again. she whispered to me, “just move”. for one, solid song i thought nothing. not a single fucking thought. i just moved. but even that’s not quite right. something moved me.

kind of how something spills words into my conscious and asks for a transcriber. something about writing in a fluid trance isn’t just me. there’s something working through me to paint the world in words. something worked through me today in the kitchen. i opened up and received liberation. and when i came to, wheezing with exertion, i cried.

rain clouds spilled. from the couch i watched rain drop through sun rays. ever the scientific genius, i smiled and said, “i bet there’s a rainbow outside!” and promptly ran/tumbled/walked to the window. to see a streak of rainbow, bright above the hill.

then i cried a little bit more.

(because i am cheesy and think everything has meaning).

how do YOU see your soul?

namaste

zoe

(p.s: i wrote this yesterday)

(p.p.s: the best, best, best part? usually after any dancing i walk around with a sore, inflamed low back. yesterday (and today!) not only do i feel no pain, but i feel strength!)

(p.p.p.s: happy valentine day. to be honest, i am not a fan. for various reasons (maybe i’ll discuss this tomorrow?) but mainly because i believe in loving every day. regardless, have a beautiful, love-filled, chocolate-and-rose-fueled day!)

self-love sunday: love isn’t conditional

i wrote something the other day.

(source)
about a friend and a conversation.
about a friend and gratitude.

i keep thinking about it.

specifically:

the people who love me most are the people i hurt the most.

because i do. i take for granted the love. the support. the affection and attention. i choose to mis-interpret, to build dramas founded on whimsical thoughts.

to be honest:

i think i am a shitty friend (and daughter. and occasional lover).

i think i tarnished a lot of relationships because i tested people. i tested their capacity to love me. i asked for love without ever actually asking for it. and i always got it. overwhelming amounts of the stuff. i got love so deep i got scared.

i distrusted the relationships i held with people because i never thought beautiful, honest, forgiving, loving relationships existed for me. i thought they might go away. that they were conditional. that i needed to be someone else first. because of lessons learned in horrible, no good relationships. consequently, i’ve strained relationships where nothing but love ever existed. i was the only suspicious one. i tested the boundaries of my friendships to test the extent of other’s love for me.

for that i am regretful.

for that i am embarrassed.

for that i am apologetic.

but.

i know now:

love exists for me.

real, unconditional love.

right now.

and, you know, it’s okay for me to take it.

it’s okay for me to express my love for others, to not always expect some back. it doesn’t mean i am any less seen, any less loved. no one is out to get me. i can drop my suspicions. i can trust. i can believe in the relationships in my life. i can believe in myself.

enough to end the silent investigations.
enough to be content with what was shared if a relationship fades.
enough to soften, to accept what is without over thinking.

enough to simply be.

namaste

zoe