Growing Pains

Can I be honest? This week was REALLY difficult for me. I felt like I just sucked at being an adult. Nothing I did was right. My schedule was a mess, I wasn't sleeping, and there was just too much to do. I felt inadequate in all my roles. Like really inadequate. I would have loved to have sat at a coffee shop and cried my eyes out. Ain't nobody got time for that. Yet, there is time for yelling, apparently. Sheesh, I should probably reevaluate. My husband is a go-getter (it's a good thing, normally) and impulsively made all these changes in our 400 square foot beach shack without letting me process any of them. Which has been a trend since we've moved in. Now, when I come home, I look around thinking, I never pictured that, that's not me. For instance, I live in the bluest interior house that I never imaged myself living in. Small details seep into my day, our shoes no longer have a home, and there is no space for more storage, things like that. It's okay. Now breath. 

Growing pains. Life pains. Marriage pains. Self pains. 

It will all be okay. 

On the bright side of this week and all the weeks before, I've learned in my adult years a valuable lesson in breathing. A deep breath can change a lot. A deep breath brings clarity and brings to light what I'm feeling. Sometimes after a deep breath I feel the heaviness of life and what I've been suppressing, sometimes after a good deep breath tears happen, and other times a deep breath brings freedom. The point is, it slows life down for a brief moment to actually think and gather thoughts. This week I found moments while walking the dog and seeing Grey whales so close I could touch them and gave myself the time to walk 4 miles. I felt really lucky, and immediately knew to thank God for that. I worked at the Ritz Carlton this weekend and although I'm working, I know to feel really lucky because you can't beat the views and the mass of the sea and how powerful that feeling really is. Its rather breath taking. And in those moments, I'm reminded at how majestic He really is. 

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And everything will be okay. 

Breath.

Give it time. 

Chicken Scratch

I remember it well. I remember sitting in my fourth grade class, we were grading math homework and she said it. She, my fourth grade teacher, who I have forever named the "witch." 

"You write like chicken scratch," she said. 

In front of my entire class, she embarrassed me. What kind of teacher does that.  The worst part was, she refused to let anyone grade my math homeworks. It wasn't sloppy writing, it wasn't something i just threw together,  it was just how I wrote. It wasn't graceful, i'm sure it wasn't the worst there ever was.  It didn't end there. She proceeded to send me to the coat closet and locked me in there until I finished rewriting a weeks worth of homework with direct orders from the witch, "you'll stay in there until I find your writing acceptable." I cried. I rewrote. I cried some more and rewrote some more. 

I'd like to say there was some silver-lining, that there was some major life lesson I learned. Mainly I learned that teachers can be mean and they are not all good. (although years later, I learned she received teacher of the year, something I will still never understand.)

I'd like to say after that incident that I not have perfect penmanship, I don't. In fact, I have a strange combo of cursive and print. Mainly cursive. I write slow, I write messy. 

That's okay. 

That doesn't take away from the words that I write. 

On writing with grace, 

Be honest. 

Try new things. 

I think about this story a lot. Anytime I can't read my own writing, I mumble "chicken scratch." 

Seventeen year later, I decided to do something "fun" about it. 

Calligraphy. 

Scarlet and Gold Shop offered a free beginners livestream calligraphy class that was a lot of fun. I'm not sure if i'll ever write calligraphy well and gracefully but I can write, "Let's write pretty," okay. 

Someday, maybe I will learn my name. 

Spring and all that it brings

I love this time of the year. I really do. I love when everything comes out to play. I enjoy taking walks and smelling unexpected surprises. That moments when you pass a house and all of a sudden stunning fragrances fill the air. I dare say that I love it more than fall. Fall comes with it's own fragrances but spring's blooms. You just can't beat it. Spring all brings hope and light for me. The days becomes longer and the nights shorter. There is more light and light reminds me of all things good. I find during springtime I begin changing my thoughts to happier things. I love that hummingbirds and squirrels come out to play and you can see them playing tag weaving in and out of plants and flowers. It's magical. 

Tell me about your spring favorites? 

"treat yo self"- a time for birthdays

I kind of don't like my birthday. I like other people's birthdays a lot. Just not mine. Mine comes with a lot of baggage. This post isn't about this. This post is about adventuring on my birthday and spending way too much money that I didn't have. But Parks and Rec taught me multiple things and one thing was "treat yo self" and that I did. 

A little junk in the trunk.

I've been contemplating reasons why I don't journal as much anymore. And I think a lot of the reasons boil down to one simple phrase. "I don't feel like myself," thus I don't really like myself because I don't know myself right now. I'm starting to realize that what I knew of "myself" were rooted in a lot of things that I never realized were components of who I was or viewed myself as. Whether that is the people I surrounded myself with, my appearance, or the things that I enjoy doing. That parallels what my roles in life are now..... and I haven't been able to find intersecting points. So the part of me that I know is running on but I'm not on that track. I'm on the side of what my life has become in new, different roles.  That basically are a bunch of growing pains.  

My current one has been my weight. I don't think I'm too big. Given, I don't want to be this big but it is what it is. I've always been curvy...size xs on top and medium on bottom. I know how to dress for that, I know what looks good. what fits. what feels like me. I know how to be confident in that skin. I worked out my woes with being bottom-heavy long ago. But now, the gift of marriage that keeps on giving has lead me to gaining about 20ish pounds. (The hubs cooks really not healthy, good food. I eat lots of carbs and starches now.) Oh yeah, the gift of marriage. I'm now more like a medium on top and largish on bottom. If you were to go into my closet and go through all my clothes (I HAVE A LOT OF CLOTHES, I never get rid of anything) and you saw me on a regular basis. You would clearly notice that I don't wear 3/4 of those clothes.  These clothes sort of loom over what I once was. I keep thinking in, a couple of months, they won't fit so snug. Then a couple of months passes and more of my clothes don't fit. 

The body is strange and weight is connected to the body. It's not always as simple to shed some pounds as one might think.  I'm still trying to find my balance finding the correlation between my old and new defining roles.  

Recognizing myself as a twenty-something (closer to the thirty mark), Jesus follower, wife, animal-mama, friend, sometimes writer, sometimes photographer, and recognizing myself with a little more junk in the trunk.