It is rainy and it is cold and I am over it. I usually like this weather and the comfort it brings by allowing things to slow down and get cozy and comfy. Take it easy. I can always tell when I am going to be ready for the early days of summer…it is when I get to the point where my skin is so pale that my pink cheeks don’t even help balance out my tone anymore. I do not tan well, really at all. I get freckles and lose some, perhaps most of my translucent skin, but by no means do I tan. I turn to a little selfless tanner a few days a week to get me through the summer, but fuck it is exhausting to keep up with. Once, the man who told me I was unlovable and I were on one of our first few dates, and on the way home we stopped at Whataburger because I by no means hide my human need to consume food at random times…when we pulled up to the second window, the parking lot light was shining on the inside of his trucks front windshield and onto my forearm. He gasped a little, grabbed my arm, and with this weird tongue in the way of his airflow to his nose voice he had said “Oh my gosh, you are see-through!” Yes. Yes I am, give me my arm back and can you please make sure you get extra ketchup? One time I went to Whataburger after a night out with my girlfriend. When we woke in the morning we texted each other and discovered that our bags were missing, the napkins, etc. There was evidence we had been there and ate, but so much was missing. So we both agreed we ate most of the paper items that came with our order in addition to the food and we left it at that. Some things I really can just feel comfortable with accepting never knowing for sure and letting it go. It is rare, but eating a fucking fast food bag is one of those things. I don’t have fast food often. I am talking once, maybe twice a year…but when I do, I eat the straw wrapper. When I am completely honest with myself I know for a fact that even though I have always told myself to just let myself go a little, I cannot, because I would not be happy. I think sometimes I envy people who are just so fucking happy with themselves and life, but then I remember we are all human and we all are truthfully struggling with something internally in one way or another. And hey, I am not sure who needs to “hear” this right now, but, it is ok to not be ok. I am not ok. I have been significantly struggling for a little while now and I make it fucking impossible for people to be there for me the way I wish to be there for them. and usually am because that is what friends are for. There is nothing admirable about extreme strength to overshadow the weakness it can be. I remember once when someone asked me what my weakness was, I told them it was my strength and when they asked me what my strength was, I told them it was my strength as well. Not sure that even makes sense as I write that out. But what I mean is, that I am unbearably strong at times, so strong that it hinders my ability to ask for help, admit things are tough, or say, I cannot get out of bed, or most notably, I need you. Well, I am working on that. Yesterday was a day in bed. I slept in most of the day, woke up made coffee, and got back in bed. Took a nap a few hours later and only got out of bed to eat a little before going back to sleep for the night. But I woke up this morning, I made my coffee and cleaned the house, I showered and dressed and I spent a couple of hours with my mom before she left town again, took the boys with me on a walk, came home, and washed my hair. I even reached out and thanked people who have been standing nearby for being the friends who do just that and reminded them it had nothing to do with them and that I was just not capable of being present for/with them right now. I reached out to others and admitted I could not get out of bed yesterday and finally asked two others to please spend a little time with me in public tomorrow. Hold me accountable. Make me get up and get dressed and drive more than just a few minutes to the park for social interaction over coffee but then let me get back home afterward to keep healing and fuel up again. Because truth be told, this is in fact how I live my life. I am solid to be active if it involves the outdoors, myself, and my sons. However, I am only good for true societal submerging 1-3 times a month. And some people just don’t get it. Especially those who can only see and understand what is presented to them rather than what lies inside of someone. I like to be alone a lot. I am extremely bubbly and a good conversationalist, but if I could have it my way, I would choose alone 90% of the time if not more. You would think having see-through skin would be beneficial in helping some people see that there is more to me than what meets the eye, but it turns out that even then some people still only see that I would look better with a tan.

I know damn well when it is summer and too hot to even take the trash out, I am going to miss these days, so I try and remind myself to just enjoy pieces of it. I have been enjoying pieces of things lately. I think a lot of life is spent that way. Recently a friend texted me very late one night and asked me a question out of the blue. The question was more or less, what moment/experience in my life caused me to make the choices I have made ever since the experience itself, be they good or bad? What stuck with me, what was it that I learned that comes up every time I decide on how to handle something? Why do I make these choices when I have the freedom to choose anything at all? I was right on the verge of falling asleep just before midnight so I could brag the next day about how my sleep schedule was improving…and then boom, I got the text and I thought holy shit my sleep is going to be extremely fucked again. Naturally/of course I dove into it. Way more so in my thoughts than in my response, because it was established that the answer did not have to be shared. But, I stayed awake and I thought and thought and thought, and if you know me at all in person…I thought a fuck ton more. The question came at the most perfect time to match up with what has been going on in my life. And the person who asked the question has no idea of anything going on with me…talk about kismet. Life works that way for all of us. I have always been very open to seeing it happening/unfolding around me. The people that are brought into my life on this wave of eternal ribbon, the timing, the question that comes in before midnight, the number that is on repeat in my life, the song that comes on, the peace that I feel in moments, and the absolute uncertainty others can bring. I am fortunate to have an intimate world full of people who support, challenge, and understand me. When I let myself be my true self, and all that entails, I feel life embracing me in return. Like really embracing me, not melted but fucking one with myself and everything around me. I know some people really struggle to understand this concept and I also feel you can get carried away with it, but why not let it happen? This is clearly where the original question took me. Why not allow yourself to have a little bit of things that just fucking feel right even when they don’t make logical sense? Much like I allow myself to consume fast food and the paper products that come with it! I also consumed a bottle full of tadpoles when I was about 8 years old. My dad was on a bid, he used to build custom homes. He has this mind that in my eyes is open to another world full of vision only some are gifted with, but the magical part is that he makes it come to life for others. Quite literally starting with the raw earth and ending with a physical space for people to build their lives, memories, and safety in. To me, I always thought it was so miraculous and overlooked. Often I would go to job sites with him and help chalk lines on the fresh concrete, push the magnetic broom to pick up stray nails or climb the lumber piles, and imagine the color of the walls that would soon surround them. I remember going to job bids and meetings with the clients but sometimes we would go as a family. Once we did and to entertain ourselves, my brother and I collected tadpoles out of the nearby water and put them in an empty Big Red bottle. It was a very hot summer day in Texas. On the drive home, I remember my legs kicking from the bench seat and always wondering when it was going to be my turn to brag that my feet could touch the ground while being buckled in and then knowing damn well we only made stops if necessary. As my dad used to say, “If you need to go to the bathroom, hang it out the window”. As I did not have anything to hang out the window (not even a Hilda) I often just held it and learned not to drink too much of anything before going anywhere. But not on this day. This day was fucking hot and so I saw water and chugged without hesitation. Water that was from the river and in a bottle that was full of tadpoles. I drank them all and only stopped to realize what I just did once the last lump and tail went down my throat. Sometimes I wonder if those motherfuckers are still in me. Rationally I know the answer, but creatively I question it and make up scenarios of what they have been doing all this time inside of my body…other than becoming frogs of course, duh. So I have a bit of the blues, a lot of questions, so much inspiration around me, hope inside of me (old fucking frogs too) and a future to build by fighting for it now. I am confident in the people I have standing beside me and the woman that I am. I also trust so much more in my faith and my God and the results of leaving most all of it to the aforementioned than I do anything I could decide with false certainty for myself. I know one day I will look around and say, I fucking did it. I know I try and make that statement every single day. Because the past me was not as far as the present me in so many ways. And so today I have made it, I have done it, I did do it. There is just always more to be done. That is the reason I tell myself it is ok to stay in bed, the reason it is ok to refuel, to preserve and protect my energy, to be ecstatic for the simplicity in just knowing the love of being a mother, the hurt and frustration of the same. To know other love that doesn’t make logical sense, but exceeds all expectations and heals everything inside of me with a creative hand and whimsical hair. To find love in others daily and to be conscious of not taking that for granted. To know what it feels like to be hugged when I need it the most and to be nurtured by safe souls. People who guide me right into the moment where I feel a complete release in the intentional results of being listened to without being judged or misunderstood and how that allows me to reach this beautiful place in my mind and finally my body where my emotions can escape my eyes without thought or control. They just leave and I can understand better as a result. What a fucking beautiful process, what a luxury it is that I have a process in which life gifted me people who fit the pieces that make it whole and functioning. My world extends in every direction, encompasses people from every walk of life, and yet somehow miraculously pulls all of us in with the softest pull from the eternal ribbon that is circling and wrapping around us. The ribbon moves us in this light with ease and constant motion, something we feel and find by surrendering and trusting. And when we do, we discover it ensures each of us is ok, that each of us has love, joy, support, and healing. And of course all of the fun stuff too. The shenanigans and the stories we create by communicating with one another and sharing life by eating paper bags after a night of dancing to The Smiths on confetti-filled floors and hair so insanely out of control from being brought to life in movements that mimic the ribbon. Low times are low times. Difficulties, challenges, and sadness are inevitable, but they too flow in this light dance that twirls around us and entangles us with others who were hand-selected to move in the same flow we are spinning in. To heal with one another, and most importantly to grow. I do trust and have learned that I can reach out and feel them even in the darkness. If I am here, I know they are here too. I hope my eyes are always open to see them, but if they happen to pass by me on the brief occasion I shut them to lose myself for a moment, I hope that life brings them back around with the next song and draws the ribbon taut.