Sparkly gel pens

and other ways I am meeting myself again

My consistency as a person has always been a bit of a head scratcher. There are some routines and rituals and reliable quirks that I will take with me to the very end, and others that I cannot commit to no matter how desperately I will it.

A decent bedtime? Always.

80oz of water? In my dreams.

Talking to birds? Every time.

Writing a weekly newsletter? Your guess is as good as mine.

I do want to be a more consistent person. It would bode really well for my personal health if I could count on myself to just go to that class 3x a week or eat regular meals. But I just… don’t. Sometimes I am walking 6 miles a day and sometimes I’m walking 6 miles a week. Some days I am crushing three balanced meals and others I am rifling through the cupboard for handfuls of popcorn or almonds when I get a second to think about it. I’ve been in the habit of beating myself up about this sort of thing for a long time, as if it’s my inconsistencies that keep me from being or doing all the things that I want to be and do. What I think I really lack here is recognition of my own flexibility, which could very well become the energy that lifts me into a space of reliability if I give it the opportunity.

I’m flexible as hell. I have a lot of patience and grace for myself and for others. Shit happens, things change, our emotional storms come and go, it’s all good. You want to cancel plans on me? No sweat, there’s a chance I need the space too. You call me up for an impromptu hang and it’s likely I have the time and would love to eat spring rolls and talk about nothing (and everything). So where I may lack in discipline, I greatly make up for it in spontaneity and openness. If I zoom out, I think I like it better this way, and only in that zone can I really pinpoint the tiny, judgmental voice who wants me to be more consistent as just a piece of my personality that at the end of the day is really just fretting about me being my best self. And there are so many pathways to “best self” and versions of it that don’t force me to try to get my brain to work in a way that causes me more stress in an already too stressful world.

When are you the hardest on yourself? The most critical? What is that really about? I’m willing to bet it’s not what you think it is. I bet it’s something a little more hidden, a little deeper into the well than you usually go. I bet you’ll find that your shortcomings can easily be transformed into your greatest strategies with a little shift in perspective. Give yourself a break, you deserve it.

That’s all life is anyway, isn’t it? Constant invitations to shift our perspective so that we can exist more fully? Just a long walk to the end where we drop the small stuff bit by bit along the way so that we can start wearing bigger hats and eating the cake and taking the bull by its damn horns without a second thought. That’s all I want. I want to be as weird and alive as possible because I’ve spent so much time in my life, more than enough time already, worrying if my weirdness and aliveness was the right kind of weird and alive. One of my favorite journal prompts of all time is “What do you admire most about nature and what does that tell you about how you’d like to show up in the world?” I think about this prompt constantly, and nature always provides me with a new answer. Nature is a master of presence. It shows up as is, in all its wild and wonderful glory, offering whatever it can without expectation of how anyone is going to receive it. It gives and it takes and it surprises us and it pisses us off - it’s really just out there pelting acorns at us and dropping spiders onto our shoulders and dying and rebirthing before our eyes in a nonstop cycle. Gorgeous.

I’ve gotten into the habit of offering full transparency, especially to strangers, and I’d say it catches people off guard at least 50% of the time, which surprises me but doesn’t. I think most folks are pretty good at hiding. One of my absolute favorite things in life is seeing someone come out of hiding to show me a piece of themselves they otherwise wouldn’t, especially in response to me laying it on the line and gently baiting them with my own here-I-am-ness. Not in an abrasive way - I really just mean like, if I’m in line at a coffee shop and I want to compliment someone I see, I’m going to do it. Or if you ask me how I’m doing, I’m going to tell the truth, even if it’s hard. This is part of why I’d like to become a teacher, so that I can create a space for kids to feel safe in their authenticity, especially if they can’t get that at home. I often worry if I’m doing enough for my community, and this feels like a really good way to be a more active participant in its emotional growth. My joy is your joy. My honesty is your honesty. That’s good medicine.

My roommate just came home as I was writing and I told her I was afraid this newsletter is boring and then promptly realized it’s okay if it is. How quickly the brain turns on us. I feel like a fish flopping around on the shore. Just get in the water, dummy.

My hiatus from social media continues to be an alarmingly positive endeavor and has allowed me to think more patiently and compassionately about …. everything. It’s created such an abundance of space that I am almost overwhelmed by the ideas about how to fill my time. I want to play volleyball (wait, listen, I haven’t played since I was 13 and I want to play so badly but why do volleyball camps not exist for adults?? I just want a coach to tell me what to do and make me do drills. I’m afraid if I join an intramural league that I’ll piss everyone else off), I want to learn how to make stained glass art, I want to start a walking club, I want to work on my book, I want I want I want. This is not a bad problem to have, I remind myself, although I do desperately wish a little, brightly-colored catalogue would arrive in the mail that listed all the possible extracurriculars and clubs and whatnot, just like it did when I was ready to go to summer camp as a kid or when they’d put sign-up sheets on the board at the start of the school year. I just want to sit down with a collection of sparkly gel pens and circle all the stuff I want to try, noting my favorites with little hearts in the corners.

Swearing off Instagram has rapidly thrust me into a place where I am facing myself in new ways. I am meeting myself again and again, all different ages and expressions of me. I am watching myself try on new shapes. I never used to see myself in my own dreams and lately I’m always looking in the mirror and seeing another version of me. This sweet, holy architecture holds endless possibilities.

As always, thanks for reading. I visited Nashville this past weekend for the first time since nearly a year ago, my second home, and was filled with old ghosts and new promises. I held friends I’ve missed deeply while eating incredible food that I can’t seem to find anywhere else, and I made new, shiny memories with my partner while contending with past energies of extreme heartbreak and existential discomfort. Nashville has always been a dynamic city for me, and it will always have half of my heart. I was so floored to hear from many familiar mouths that they’d read my last newsletter and wished me well. I left feeling as full as ever.

I love y’all.

See you soon.