an amazing time

somewhere amidst the sleepless nights, long days, and impending chaos of this season, this week i had the thought: this is an amazing time in your life. don't waste it. and in that moment i realized: i have no husband. no children. no property. no prospects. soon i won't have a job. and it's because of what i don't have, that i do have all the freedom, wildness, and possibility to my name that i could ever ask for.

don't waste it

shiver and sway || umberlove

i also realized that i'm weathering a time of my life during which i simply can't maintain people who need a lot from me. i can support my friends through their storms as they are supporting me through mine, but i can't satisfy high-maintenance people right now. and you know, not everyone understands that. so thank God for her. and her, and her. and her. and her.

so as would be fitting for this amazing time in my life, my friends have been saying some pretty amazing things to me lately. we're talking about the kinds of amazing things that stop your heart dead in its tracks and kick-start your tear ducts into immediate, silent action. i want to pass some of these things on because they're too meaningful to hoard to myself.

when i fell apart:

our struggles are are own, and really can never be compared
in "bigness" or smallness" with someone else's
because they're not the one dealing with our distinct situation . . .
really really shitty things happen to us, but somewhere in there,
there can be the promise of reinventing ourselves.

i see this as the last few pages in your current chapter,
and when you see that last period and the expanse of blank page below it,
you'll know that so many things can happen in that next chapter.
{ kelly }

when i asked for her help inventing a pen name:
why not write under your own name?
when she read one of my poems:
this needs to be published. post-haste.
{ candace }

every day:
i love you.
{ jillian }

i may be a poor woman soon, by the world's standards.
but on the scales of heaven, i'm the richest girl in all the earth.

the maelstrom swirling at my feet is going to be disappointed
because i'm not wasting one more minute of all this heartache.