Being "That Girl"

I've got a lot of thoughts and not a lot of sense. I'm navigating this weird place called the 20s where your heart hurts and brain swells and your friends come and go. Where you're pushed and you're pulled and folks start expecting you to just get it together, already. A place where I've realize I know a lot about love and nothing about it at all. Where inspiring and independent Pinterest quotes decorate my Instagram but my insecurities question if I come on too strong - all those feelings and passions and urges can get the best of you.  

This post isn't about making sense of what's going on in the Big World or my own little world. This is about getting words on a page and offering up the woman I am today - the flawed, messy, sometimes sad but mostly happy, occasionally emotionally volatile, passionate, confused, confident, and purpose-seeking human being that sits on the other side of this screen. Because there aren't rules for this life, but I know it's worth living. And right now, I'm shooting for the best attempt at doing it unashamed. 

So here we go. Welcome to crevices of this dusty, mixed-up soul.

My heart often feels like it's bursting. I'm a true feeler through and through, that's no secret. And lately I've been walking around with this heart that I actually feel. I'm not certain if it's growing or if I'm just realizing it with all its power but its a dictator and lately it's been rocking my world. 

I've found it's easy to relegate matters of the heart to the periphery. To take all the little things that make your heart beat and push them to the side or into a box, for safe-keeping and self-preservation. I've never been good at that.  I'm a lover and a fighter and my heart rules my world. And despite being burned and broken, it keeps coming back for more.

You know that surge of passion? You know what I'm talking about. When you stumble upon a grand something that makes your heart ache and propels you into action and gives you the courage to do all the things you've wanted to do and puts a fire in you to stand in front of a crowd and profess your commitment to that thing or idea or person? 

That. I feel that all the time. For people and ideas and movements and causes and sunsets and smiles and laughter and hope. And the battle between my heart and my head has never been more intense than now.

You see, my hearts pumps for people and desires to reveal the magic that sits within each one of us. I'm stumbling around scratching at something that I think is might be purpose and looks a lot like love. I see and read things every day that make me feel some kind of way and the fog surrounding the reason I'm on this planet in this moment is starting to lift but the path is still a mystery.

I ask the deep questions. I am unafraid of baring my soul and beg to see yours. I want to know the moments you hold dearest and the deepest fears you keep under lock and key.  But that... that stuff is scary. It's dangerous. And it pushes people away. So I keep this fundamental element of my being hidden from most, but in the spirit of vulnerability and authenticity it is time to lay it out on the table. On this path to self-discovery and intentionality, I have recognized a strangeness in myself that I don't often reveal to those except trusted others. Fueled by the matters of my heart, I've got an irrational willingness to respond to the tugs of my heartstrings and jump in head first to nearly everything.  

I respond as a willing servant to the beating organ in my chest, following through on the promptings to say and do whatever it calls for, and to go wherever it may beckon. I often feel a very real and somatic pressure on my lungs, creating a pressure that makes it hard to breathe until I do the thing my heart demands. I recognize how bizarre it is to nearly always follow your heart's promptings and what a strange, intense, whimsical way it is to live - with such dedication to an organ that so often brings us pain and hurt and sorrow when all we truly desire is to be known and loved.

Often, I wish I was different. That I wasn't such a slave to the promptings and that being combative or resistant to them didn't make matters worse. Raising my little fists toward the sky in rage, I've been banging down God's door demanding answers. What do you want from me? Why do you keep breaking my heart? Why did you create me to be THAT GIRL, the one with all the feelings and the depth of heart and the soul that longs to scratch more than surface of another? Every. Damn. Day.

Despite the very real heart swells that inevitably end in the valley of disappointment and loneliness (which always seem to bounce back with luster into another swell), I think the challenge of loving too much and feeling a sincere passion for the souls of the world is the best one to have. I don't have much of an answer for the direction of my life, much less how I'm going to navigate a world where we are taught to think with our heads and shut down our irrational and irresponsible hearts. However, I'm choosing to be the unconventional protagonist of my own tale and while its ambitious, I've got a plan. 

A plan to risk more than is required to love as many people as I can with abandon despite knowing the fault lines of my heart will be rattled more than once. I choose to release mediocrity and embrace mastery. To be as kind and generous and genuine as possible and to express gratitude at all times. To find beauty in the oddities and imperfections. To learn more than is normal in order to scatter light and send darkness running.  To question everything and to explore with a spirit of optimism. To inspire others to see their value and worth and to know they are enough. To be strong and confident and brave in order to be a warrior for those who need one. To use this life, the only one I've got, to be a force of love and compassion and hope. 

And while my goals are zealous, I have no doubt, that if nothing else, they will lead to creating a life of something worth sharing. I've got a white-hot passion for many things this life offers, and living lukewarm is a non-option. So from here, I choose to take on the task of becoming myself, that girl with the wild untamed heart, and to hold back not a single thing. Because I believe when you stop fighting who you are and what you're made of, you get to become the person you're meant to be. And the becoming is the very best part.

It Doesn't Get Better

I've been wanting to write things down. To get it on the screen. But my brain has been jumbled and things don't come out right when you're in the midst of figuring out who you are and what your life means. You see, lately it's been rough. It's been really, really rough. And through the pain and the hurt and the frustration of it all I've come to know so much more about myself.

I'm realizing that not everything gets to be fixed. Hearts get broken and the brokenness never allows for all the pieces to settle back the way they were before. Mistakes happen and you hurt others and you hurt yourself and you learn to love yourself through the process and sometimes you're lucky enough to be forgiven by the others you've hurt along the way, too. This is the struggle of growing up and becoming who you really are. At some point you realize that you don't get the chance to mend everything and some things are better left shattered than a half-hearted attempted to paste it back together. 

I've been a little bit beat down lately and I think it's because life decided it's got a lesson to teach. And that's the thing about life - it demands to teach and it won't let up it til it does. If you're like me, you get your heart broken. You get pushed around for a while, shoves on all sides, and despite trying not to, you break down and cry. You might cry a lot about a lot of little things or just one big thing. You sit in your room and you let the tears stream down because you're tired of the pep talks and brushing yourself off only to trip and bloody your hands again. I've been mending wounds only to rub salt in them for a while now.  

But through the very real pain and honest, heart-wrenching, this-sucks-so-bad kind of hurt I'm starting to pick up what life is putting down. On those really crappy days where you doubt your self worth and why we're all in this place where we love one another only to hurt each other just to try and pull ourselves back together again - you end up digging way deep deep down to find the courage to keep on going. 

The mountain range of challenges that sit up on the horizon - they exist to show you the potential for all the things you ever wanted. Looking up at the peaks from the valley is scary. Your ankles shake in your boots and you think to yourself, "This is never going to happen for me."

But with the unconditional love of others and a spark that one day decides to settle in untamed, when you're ready to put one foot in front of the other again to begin the steep climb, when you start to believe that you might have a real shot at it - and I mean actually look in the mirror and see the fighter and the overcomer that you are - you get the chance to take the path less traveled. Find your fire and blaze the road to the story of your life and when you get on the rocky, narrow trail just keep going and don't look back. 

Don't waste your time longing for those who don't long for you. Don't fret about the things you will not and cannot change. Stop the self-shaming and the guilt trips and the fear of living a life of purpose with your name smacked right out front in brilliant Broadway lights.

"Don't worry, it gets better" is the biggest cop-out I've ever heard. Because it doesn't get better. It's the lie we've repeated for so long because it allows us to resign the ownership of our lives and fate over to the hands of the universe. I'm here to let you in on the secret and put the truth right in your pretty little lap: IT doesn't get  better. All the things that hold you back and bring you to the breaking point don't cease to exist and they don't magically get better. People will continue to hurt you. The ghosts and the fear and the doubt will creep in at night. The people you love the most will let you down. You don't get a hero to save you. Something much more magnificent happens. With the mess and the time and the sitting in the brokenness and sorrow of things you loved and lost you discover a strength and a will. It doesn't get better. 

You get better.

You learn that a half broken heart is still broken. That your once-best-friends are strangers now. That people lie and cheat and steal. That you will continue to make mistakes and create the messiest of messes. And you get to feel the searing pain of rejection and anger and sadness and everything else that brings you to your knees. That immense suffering demands to be felt. 

I feel it, too. I sat alone in the silence of my car last night with lights off and the quiet only found in apartment parking lots at 11pm and the voice of Christina Perri telling me that you're only human and you bleed when you fall down. The ache that you feel today, the utter pain and confusion and chaos, is all for a reason. The trials of today are here and they may be here to stay.

But that strength inside you will wake you up with anticipation of the peaks to climb because whether you want to or not everyday you get the chance to try - to try to do the best you can with what you've got again and again and again. I believe you hold an incredible power. There is braveness in those bones that harbors the soul within. You are the most special of humans and your story was made to be one of legend. This world is beating down your door with white noise and chaos to distract you from discovering the reason you exist in this moment in this place. It's in the overwhelming anxiety and the can't-do-it-ness that you've got to shut down and instead listen to that slow and steady rhythm of breath leaving your body and put a hand to your chest to feel the never-ceasing pulse of your heart working away. 

Do it now. 
Sit there. 
Listen. 
Feel it.

Hear that? Feel that? That's purpose. You, my brightest and dearest darling, are going to be ok. You are going to be more than ok. Because YOU get better. And stronger. And that little heart of yours will keep pumping purpose into those bones. I believe the fact that you are still in the world - broken and hurt and all - means there is plenty of good yet to come. 

Chin up, buttercup. Your mountains are calling.