{ we finally found our way }

i want to tell you a few things:

i am beginning to understand the effect i have on people. i'm tightly ensconced in my inner world much of the time, and i have little belief in myself. so i never imagine that i'm affecting anyone with much force. i think i've really started to come into my powers (sounds grandly narcissistic but i don't know how else to put it) in the past year. with that comes responsibility. it's a massive learning process.

how am i gonna let go

of the only me i've ever known?

{ amy stroup }

today i gave myself a mermaid manicure. i used seafoam-grey polish with metallic silver accents. my hands now move with the momentum of stormy whitecaps and the glint of sun on scales.

loving people, and being loved, is hard. it's impossible to understand how someone deeply beloved can hurt you so badly, so easily. it's also baffling how unaware we can be of people we think we know well. being human, and choosing to bond our humanity to other humans, is a messy business. we tend to press on each others' bruises without realizing it. we tend to let things go longer than they should. the people safest to us are sometimes the most difficult to really talk to. being close to people doesn't come naturally to me. i've always been closest to myself, and as most of the people in my life have moved away or gotten married or had kids, that's something i'm profoundly grateful for. i've always had me, no matter what. i'll always be my own first priority (in all fairness, i know i can't expect someone with a spouse and/or offspring to put me first). it's not depressing. it's not pitiful. it is what is, and i'm leaning into it because i'm a hell of a lot to handle and i'm more than strong enough for the job.

but it's okay to lean on someone else sometimes.
i usually don't do it, because i don't want to risk that when i reach out and make that phone call, no one will answer. but sometimes you just have to call anyway. i may trust the outside world to catch me and i may fall and no net may rise up to let me down easy. that might happen again and again. but you never know when hands may be there, warmth and whorls and acceptance and kindness making a soft giving web of safety that leaves you vibrating with gratitude. so you have to keep falling, into the darkness, broken and hopeful, year after tumbling year.