I promised myself to be consistent in my approach to this brand and this website and in so many ways i have kept my head down and i have been working...but in regards to this blog that i hope to be inspirational, truthful and relate-able i dropped the ball. Two weeks ago i watched my many reminders to finalize my blog entry pass by day after day, this week i did the same thing because i felt so empty and demotivated...i honestly felt like i had nothing to give.
Yes a few minor details didn't go the way i wanted them to but nothing major happened to throw me off course. The truth is, my truth is, there are times when everything is running smoothly when life is as close to perfect as it will get and i can't muster a single smile or find one word to motivate myself...days when my tears are so close that if a door slams i shut down or break down. i'm sure many of you have thought of a million labels for what i just described but the truth is...that's just me...it is how i have been for a long time...it has been a part of "my process" for as long as i can remember and is a part of the reason that i can truly appreciate the moments when i am at my highest. If i didn't know what it felt like to be low i doubt i could be the me that i have come to love and respect so much...the me that puts as many positive and motivational words in the universe as I can as well as some harsh truths...simply because i need to hear them too.
So many times i have put a thought out there and i get messages asking who it's meant for, who is bothering me, where its coming from or some people will say that they really needed to hear that...fact is sometimes i put it out there simply because i need it, because i don't know how to take another step without a word of encouragement or a reality check...even if i have to dig deep to find it...even if it feels like my last. I have mastered the art of separating how i feel from what i know...i allow myself to feel all i need to...cry, be angry, be hurt etc...but i never allow myself to forget that tomorrow will possibly be a better day, where my feelings may balance themselves out and i get to go back to being the happy girl bursting at the seems with positivity, creativity and potential(don't you just hate this word lol...sometimes i do! Its like a ton of pressure sitting on your shoulders your whole life) i never allow myself to take my blessings for granted and sometimes in the middle of the tears(cow-bawlin' is more like it) i literally have to list all the reasons i have to be thankful, all the reasons why i know my tears aren't warranted even though i still have to let my emotions run their course. I don't believe in bottling things up, i have never benefited from trying to do so(i literally get headaches, my neck gets so stiff i can feel the anger and frustration make its way through my body, sometimes it manifests in the form of a sore throat or other flu-like symptoms...maybe this is in my mind...but) one thing i know for sure is...stress, anger, pain, rarely stay in the mind or on the inside...they need an outlet just like anything else and when they don't get one they poison us.
There are days we question where we are, how we got there and where we are going? This doesn't necessary mean we are lost or moving forward with no destination in sight...it just means we take the time to evaluate our journey and ensure we are still on track. There are other times that we question WHO WE ARE...now that is a loaded question and to be honest we don't always know where to look for the answer. For some of us its as simple as race or ethnicity, the company we keep, our financial status, our address, what seems to be in fashion in society...i don't know if i could just look to any one thing on this list to define me because i believe who we are goes way deeper than outside influences. A lot of times the where we are(decided by others) and the who we are(not yet discovered) doesn't line up and then we are lost.
Our environment sometimes helps to bring out the best in us (the lucky ones) and so sometimes it is instrumental in uncovering who we are at our core or who we are meant to be, whether it be the ballerina who found herself at the summer camp dance program or the preacher who discovered his passion for ministry at vacation bible school. There are those of us whose environment does the opposite...it squeezes out any potential we have and discards it, labeling it as useless to someone like us in the situation in which we exist, some of us have it beaten out of us because it is misunderstood or simply too "strange" or colorful for anyone to accept...and there are those who didn't bother to search for their identity because someone decided for them...(your mother and grandmother were lawyers so you must be too or your father was a carpenter so you must be too). Some of us accept and thrive in these pre-designed life plans but there are others who can never seem to be fulfilled because something just doesn't fit right.
For me i never questioned who i was because i was always allowed to be ME in my truest form and i was encouraged to pursue my dreams and supported in these pursuits. So the questions never came from inside...they came from people who couldn't make sense of who i was or how my parents and others believed in me and supported me without doubt. The reality is as a child when we show interest in dance or art we are deemed talented and well rounded and encouraged by everyone...when we show interest in rare bugs or foliage and fauna we are labelled little geniuses who will accomplish great things, but when we get to adulthood onlookers literally expect us to shed all we have been and worked towards to fit into the box they picked out for us. See, this is equivalent to not teaching your child how to boil water or pick up after themselves and then expecting that on their eighteenth birthday the angels will magically descend and bless them with the know how and ability to make soup that will make your toes curl and eat it off a floor that they have cleaned spotless(but this is for another day).
In every second of our lives, the small seemingly insignificant decisions we make, the barely noticeable habits and practices are shaping us into who we will be...its not something you figure out in fours years of college or after winning the lotto...from the moment we take our first breath to our last, is all factored in. The good the bad and the ugly come together to make us who we are...so it is important that we are honest with ourselves about who we are and learn to love ourselves first as i imagine it must be extremely difficult to love someone not comfortable in their own skin. So those loaded questions as important as they are, sometimes don't seem so relevant when we are simply trying to find the courage to make it through the day.
My naked truth is, no matter how together i seem sometimes and how "figured out" my life seems to be (and in a sense it is, since i have always known that i wanted to do the things i am doing today and have always pursued them to some degree) there are those days when life happens to me and just for a split second i question it all...whether i can, whether its worth it, whether everyone who questioned my pursuit of these dreams were right to doubt me. The good thing is after i cry or write a song...express myself however i need to(our spouses are normally our emotional punching bags even when they have nothing to do with the problem...God bless and strengthen them because there will be many more of these moments) i am able to answer these questions with a clear head... YES I CAN, YES ITS WORTH IT BECAUSE NOTHING HAS EVER FELT SO RIGHT OR FULFILLING AND HELL NO THE NAY SAYERS CAN FEED THAT DOUBT TO THEIR CAT...and God forbid i let someone too blind to see what is in me tell me i am nothing...God forbid i let fear kill my dreams and my potential(i literally cringe when i say/hear this word but that's for another day).
so all of this babbling is to say...no matter how successful and together someone seems to be...if you sit down with each and every one you will learn they had struggles, moments when they felt like giving up...human moments just like the ones we face everyday, but they chose to pick themselves up and continue...they chose to accept who they were, embrace all of it and find a purpose for it. For me...after every low there is a ridiculous high of productivity and creativity and just pure awesomeness where i can barely slow down to get all the ideas out fast enough and a i truly feel like superwoman...and in my opinion that makes it all worth it. So whatever that part of you that is hard to love may be...give it a new purpose...find it a place and let it exist only there...use it!