it is gratitude

I am grateful for:

💛 my sisters. For teaching me to love people who are different than myself. 

💙 my parents. For teaching me that hard work and grace bloom into love.

💚 everyone that has sung me a song or drawn me a picture. For teaching me the love of art even in its simplest of forms. 

💜 my best friends. For teaching me by example how to stand by someone through all their mistakes. 

💛 anyone that has ever hurt me. For teaching me how to heal. 

💚 every stranger that has ever shown me kindness. For teaching me there is good everywhere.

it is a refueling

I am finding the importance of enjoying ones own company. I'm also finding it to be quite freeing. There is no pressure from the outside world to make me happy. I am finally, slowly, tapping back into my own internal happiness. For so long I allowed pressure and stress to get the better of me. Now I am finding myself refueled. I am filling my heart back up with love for the world. My meditation today was magnificent. It was a little shorter than I expected but I found myself lifted to space, floating above this beautiful blue planet. Looking down on her magic and majesty I was filled with the love of the Creator in a way I have not felt in a very long time. When I opened my eyes and saw His creative handiwork in front of me I was hit with a rush of joy that overcame my fears and doubts and suddenly everything was alright. 

Thank you for putting me in this place. Thank you for giving me enough wisdom to listen. Please God grant me wisdom and grant me peace. 

it is the gaining of courage

I've been out here for a month. Not long. I have 5 months to go, which seems long. 

I told my Dad before I left that I knew where I wanted to end up in my life I just don't know how to get there. My Mom often says you need space to think. She's right. Stress often clouds the creative mind. 

I definitely have time to think now. And no I don't know how I'm going to get to where I want to go. But I'm finding myself gaining courage for the journey ahead. And excitement for all the plans and work to come. Cheers to the future and the path ahead! 

it is the sweet smell of spring

The desert is in bloom. There are flowers everywhere. Tamarisk trees and Russian olive trees are so fragrant. I drove last night as dusk settled on the river, my windows down, hair blowing in the sweet sweet breeze, the air smelled like someone sugar coated it and then sprinkled it with campfire.

it is the answer unknown

I have been trying to write this post for weeks, maybe now it's actually been months, the words struggle to present themselves. Too many thoughts, not enough articulation and at the bottom of it all I truly dont know know the answer. 

I recently moved to the middle or nowhere western America. It's supposed to be hot and dry, which I am sure it eventually will be, however it's been chilly and overcast most of my first weeks in the desert. I came here for adventure. To free my heart from the prison I have been keeping it in. Like all good adventures it is not what it is expected to be. 

I have done this once before in my life and I put so many expectations and demands on it I failed to live. I learned and grew a lot in my time at the beach. But I failed at peace, enchantment and magic. I moved to the ocean to break out of a mental rut. I had thought by moving I would find everything I had ever wanted, a husband, a farm, an amazing beach tan body, inner peace, and a light that would glow from my insides and bring everyone around me happiness like a freaking Saint. Instead I found a couple heart aches, a condo (which I loved), I was tan but not swimsuit model pretty, some stress, and I was no saint. Three years have passed since I up and moved to SC and looking back I can see that it was my expectations that stunted my trip. I did however, learn to be assertive, learn more about people and places. However the best gift it gave me was a summer with my grandparents. I would not change that for millions and I am so happy I had that time with them. Seeing love in a 60+ year marriage through cancer and heartache is a beautiful testament to my family and the human race. 

So here I am again, moving across the country to heal a broken heart. I am trying desperately to learn from my past mistakes. I am putting as few expectations on this adventure as possible. I have things I would like to accomplish while I am here. But I am accepting the fact they might not happen. The only thing I am requiring of myslef is that I will say yes to each adventure presented to me.

The big question though is why? Why did I sell or toss most of my belongings? Why did I quit my job pack my car and move without a safety net? Without a plan? Without a job? Without a house to come to? The simplest answer I have is, because I had too. 

As I have said before I am attempting to heal from a heat break this summer. And it's not just one. Last year I was dumped three times. The first was sad because I enjoyed his company so much, it was nice not to be lonely, to have someone enjoyable around at any given moment. The second was sad because I had great hopes for our future. We wanted the same dream and I thought we would work together to get it. The third however was devestating. Not only did we have the same dreams, I enjoyed him and I loved his heart. 

When I was sitting a week later at my usual spot with my usual people one of my friends in finding out I was again single said, "you just get bored with these guys don't you?" This actually was a huge breakthrough for me, so thank you Heather. This whole time each of these guys dumped me I felt like I was due for the dumping. Like I had failed somehow or another, I wasn't something, not pretty enough, not funny enough, not smart enough, I was somehow lacking in my person so that it was impossible to for me to be loved. And no matter how many times my family or friends would comfort me and tell me it just wasn't the right guy, time or what have you I still felt like I was lacking and at the end of the day it was my fault they left me. And Heather, beautifully and simply told me unknowingly that I was. In that question she said that for sure these guys wouldn't be choosing to leave me, her friend whom she loves. That surely I was the independent strong woman she saw me as and I was moving on because these men where not enough for me. They weren't enough for me? I not once in all the times friends and family would comfort me, not once did I consider they were not enough for me. That I was too great for them. And it's not because they are not great people. They just might not be my great. 

The trick is that even though she said it, and it struck my heart, resonated in my mind, I don't feel like that woman my family and friends see me as. And suddenly sitting in that place the words of friends and exes for years hit me in a different way. And I went back through loves and losses and kept going back to the first love I had. The first love that sent me on a path or searching and self discovery I realized in learning and growing and searching I had in fact lost my fun. 

There is a song on country radio, "That don't sound like you" by Lee Brice. I was listening to this song driving to or from work and I started to cry. Because that happy, bold, brave, adventurous girl had been replaced by a shadow of herself. Years of letting people into my heart had created so many scars and dark spots that I didn't recognize myself. And if my first love had seen me that day he wouldn't have seen the spark in my eye that he had been so attracted to. And my heart cried out for saving for healing but most of all for freedom. 

I watched a Ted Talk by Shonda Rhimes where she talks about losing her "hum" and in losing it she discovered what her true hum is. As I was absorbing her words I thought about how I used to feel. I used to feel like a tornado, at any time I could muster up the strength inside me to be such a powerful wind nothing could knock me down or blow me over. I wasn't a bad or destructive tornado mind you it was just that inside I felt like such a strong force I felt as powerful as a tornado. And when I was busy as work or life I felt like I was a sun and all my projects, tables, people, jobs where orbiting around my head in perfect harmony so that I could accomplish so much more that the person next to me. I haven't felt that in years. In fact the last time I felt so powerful was when I was dating the bartender. That was 5 years ago. And the last time I felt like a sun was in SC. That was 3 years ago. 

So when I say in my simplest answer that I needed to come to UT it is just that. I don't know if I will find my strength. I don't know if I will find my fun. I don't know if I will find my happy. But I am giving myself permission to look for it. I am giving my heart permission to be free from heart break, free from worry. I am givjng myslef permission to be at peace with myslef. And most of all I am telling myself that I am enough. That I may not be perfect but that I am enough. I am worthy of love. I am worthy of happiness. I am worthy of peace. 

it is finding my brave

I cried 3 times today. 

Today was the first day I was alone since I've moved to Utah. So I decided on my adventure a few days ago did proper research and set out to accomplish a childhood dream, to see wild horses and burros actually in the wild :-). The closest herd to me is a burro herd in the San Rafael Swell. I drove rocky roads for three hours and had just about given up when I saw them. Three, out of a herd of 50.  A momma her baby and a friend grazing against a stormy sky. When I saw them I surprised myself with tears. I was so happy! When I was a child I had read all the Marguerite Henry books. One of my favorite being "Brighty of the Grabd Canyon"  about a little burro who lived in the canyon. I was over the moon to see these little burros today!  I walked carefully out into the field getting as close as they'd let me which was about 500 feet and snapped photos to my hearts delight. I thanked the burros and left the park with the biggest smile in my heart. 

The second time I cried I was hiking up Goblin valley to a cave called "The Goblin's Lair". I am not afraid of much, but I do have an irrational fear of dying in a cave. So as I climbed what looked like a rockslide to climb back down the rockslide into the cave to turn around and do the whole thing again, I cried. This time in fear of my life. My brain kept telling my feet not to move towards my certain doom. But I pushed and pushed and made it up and down and in and out. I will need to go back a few times this summer to truly overcome this fear but I made a good start. As I was climbing by myself I realized how alone I was in that moment. No other hikers, no friends or family around it was me and my fear. But I did it, all by myself like a big girl :-). 

The third time I cried was because I had forgotten my heart was broken. I explored the first valley after my cave climb and was in awe of these sculptures. The most remarkable thing was the fact that though they were hard as rock you could peel layers of sand away from them. It was the most fascinating thing I had seen or felt.  And at the end of my day when I reached for my phone to tell that someone about this magical place I had found myself in I remembered that I couldn't and that brought the heartache. But I stopped and smiled and remembered something a fellow instagrammer had shared about seeing the creativity in nature. And so I did and then I laughed at the childlike cartoon characters that surrounded me. And the tears dried up and the joy took hold and I took a deep breath of the present happiness. 

I am far from perfect, far from whole, far from breaking through the chains that have been holding me back. But today I found my brave each and every step of the way. With a little luck and a lot of hard work I may just find myself again. :-)

it is the servers nightmare

It's been almost two weeks since I worked in a restaurant and almost a month since I've managed one. But I am still having "server dreams". For those of you who have done my job in the past you know what I'm talking about. The constant worry you forgot something for some table manifests into dreams about impossible parties, awkward road blocks to get your table simple things like water, doors in random places to knock over your tray. When your a manager the dreams are worse. Mostly server dreams make you feel like a rat running a maze. Manager dreams usually come with a nice strong heap of failure attached to them. 

My restaurant dreams seem to all follow the same pattern, I am a happy little FOH (front of house or floor manager) checking on tables refilling drinks and trusting my BOH (back of house or kitchen manager) to be doing their job. Then everything crashes, tables have been waiting 30 minutes for their brownie, people are restless and hungry, so I step back into the kitchen to help out. (For those of you who haven't ever had to step into a crashed kitchen to dig them out, let me tell you, it's not fun. Basically imagine so much chaos and information being thrown at you you feel like you just stepped into the heart of a tornado. There's massive amount of movement and yelling. You not only have to focus in the chaos you have to fix a moving changing puzzle. Restauarnt people have a lingo. Being in the weeds means you are so in over your head you can't see the light above nor a path to get and you don't have any sense of direction. Basically it's the worst feeling in the world. You have too many people wanting too many things in too many directions and your brain is full. Full to the max overload. When the kitchen is in the weeds, it's worse. You don't know what's cooking which table it's for or if you have enough fries down. The entire goal of every shift is to NOT GET WEEDED. Because when is happens it is hell to get out of.)  As a manager you get blamed for everything. And lovely patrons who don't care that you've been working for 10 hours and have 5 more to go, had three cooks out sick, you had to fire a server for being high as a kite when he showed up or that you've been trying your best to be 5 people doing 6 jobs all night all they care about is that they had to wait 25 minutes for their meatloaf and it didn't have enough green beans. And because it didn't have enough green beans and he was hungry and had to wait he would like me to know that it is entirely my fault and I don't know what I'm doing or how to run a restaurant. Thank you sir, I was unaware that I was such a failure. I appreciate the fact that you brought it to my attention. 

All this is to say my lovelies, be kind to your servers, bartenders, managers and cook staff. We are all human, we make mistakes. Please forgive us. Because trust me we are all dreaming through our guilt of forgetting your extra ranch three weeks ago. 

Now I for one and grateful I get to destress for a while and hopefully these dreams will eventually cease. 

it is the relief of freedom

I have got to say driving through this open country, I don't think I have ever felt so free. The vastness of the sky. The wind whipping my face. Going where I want to, for how long or when I want. I can feel the restraints of the career and expectations being lifted. During this morning's hike I found myslef crying. Not from sadness and not from joy. Rather tears of relief as I let my past go. 

it is a new year

My new year does not ever begin on my birthday or the calendar new year it begins in March. And so this year, like every other, I can feel the universe shifting underneath me. I set out on a journey to find myself three years ago when I moved across the country to South Carolina and this path of discovery has led to more to be discovered. So as the this new year awakens I am finding myself moving again. This time west to Utah. I am going to lose myself in the desert and hopefully as I lose parts of me I will find the solid strong pieces of my heart.