Make it Make You Better.

An account that I follow on Instagram called “We’re Not Really Strangers” posted this photo the other day. (Which, if you haven’t seen their work before, I highly recommend it. But that’s besides the point.)

MAKE IT MAKE YOU BETTER.
(Credit to @werenotreallystrangers on Instagram)

And I’ll tell you what, reading those five words made me stop in my tracks. Because I think sometimes we are told too often to just look for the lesson when something or someone happens to you in life. We’re told to just figure out what the purpose of that experience was and then figuring that out will help us just let it go and move on.

But I think it’s more complicated than that. With things that have been happening in my life lately, I’ve given myself time to just earnestly look at the situations and experiences with those people and I can see all these things that I learned from those situations. I can see the “lessons” that can come from what happened and I can even apply them to my life in more meaningful ways. However, being able to know or see what a relationship or experience can teach you doesn’t make it easier to swallow when the memories come rushing back or you realize how much something really is effecting you. It doesn’t always make it easier to sleep at night or to let go of some of the hurt that they caused you.

So I like the way this post made me think about things.

Make it make you better.

Make the shitty experience or the heartbreak or the lessons make you work to be better. For yourself. Make these hard, gross feelings make you work harder for what it is you want to see in your life. Make the long nights of no sleep worth something. Maybe this means you’re keeping to yourself and letting your confidence on your own grow. Maybe it means making a schedule for yourself that you actually keep so you can meet goals that you want. Maybe it means throwing out the walkie talkie to someone else so you don’t have to feel alone in this new space. Maybe it means holding yourself accountable for your own feelings around the situation. Make it make you better. Don’t let the heartbreak be something that only drags you down. And it’s not because you shouldn’t be feeling all those feelings – you deserve to feel all that you need to and that’s valid. But the thing is, at some point you’ve got to make all those hard emotions work for you and not against you. Make them mold you more into yourself and into who you are wanting to be as your most authentic self.

This is a shorter post, but I had to share some quick thoughts on it.

Because damn, make it make you better feels like exactly the mantra that I needed in my life today. And maybe it’s the kind of mantra you needed to hear on this Monday morning too.

Thanks for joining me where you’re at. Thanks for leaning in a bit. I hope you try to look at the tough things happening in your life and see ways that you can use it to make yourself a little more authentically you.

Don’t be ashamed of being a work in progress. It’s okay if the growing pains get you down some days.

It’s going to be okay.

Talk soon.

Nobody Likes You When You’re 23… Which is cool because I’m almost 24.

Okay, so maybe I don’t actually believe the now-cliched Blink 182 song, but this week does hold my 24th birthday so I’ve been looking back to this past year to see all the things that I’ve learned and lost and loved.

And man, fam, things have changed so much this year. I’ve lost some friends and gained some. I started therapy. I got a new job and left the university I had been at for the last five years. I sold my first house and moved to Indianapolis into my first apartment. I attended my first official Pride event (this was the first full year of me being OUT. Hey-o!). I had mono and didn’t get to run the half marathon I was scheduled to run. I wrote a lot and I tried new things. I found a new favorite place to get a drink. I found more clothing styles that actually make me feel like me.

As many do, I decided to write down things that I’m taking away with me from my 23rd year. Without further ado, here are 23 things I learned at 23.

1. Sometimes you have to drive a couple hours to another state simply to buy a longboard for yourself on a whim. And then go with your person to the lake and skate down along the water.
2. Taking “lazy days” doesn’t have to be something that causes you guilt when you tell yourself you could be doing other things. Sometimes taking a day to just exist is the biggest thing you can do to love yourself.
3. Getting rid of clothes that don’t make you feel confident or like yourself is one of the most freeing feelings.
4. Additionally, finding styles that DO make you feel like yourself feels like winning the lottery.
5. Doing chores you would normally rather avoid gets so much easier when you’re doing them to help out someone you love.
6. Selling your first home is so much more emotional than I anticipated. (Cue dramatic music playing while I sit in the middle of my now-empty living room crying and thinking about closing the doors to this house for the last time.)
7. Therapy is for EVERYONE. Even on the days when I literally had to walk in the opposite direction of therapy before I could brave walking down those steps, it was so so worth it to give that time to myself. Doesn’t matter if you think you need therapy or not, I’m convinced that everyone can benefit from it.
8. Leaving a job that you were no longer growing in anymore feels empowering.
9. Starting a new full time job and trying to integrate into a new group of people can be daunting. (It’s okay if it takes a while to find a new work friend, especially when you’re in a whole new city.)
10. Having to specifically pay to do laundry when you move into an apartment is frustrating (But you love your new apartment so you deal with it.)
11. When you move to a new city, finding somewhere new to be your “place” feels really good. Especially when the cider on tap is incredible (shout out to Ash and Elm!)
12.  Sometimes you have to be sad. And just let yourself feel the sadness. This year I think I learned to embrace that more than I have before. Acknowledging emotions and letting them happen instead of pushing them away. (TBH I’m still working on this, but there was a definite shift this year.)
13. Christmas music really can and should be listened to on road trips year round. (Cue Michael Buble on the drive to work in the morning.)
14. Actually making significant progress on paying off a credit card is officially the best feeling.
15. Getting rid of things really does feel good. I’m not just talking about this whole Netflix craze that is sweeping the US right now to tidy up. When I was prepping to move this past fall, getting rid of things just felt good especially because of how much I had changed in the last year.
16. I learned that hiking is something that I should actually do more often, and I didn’t let myself get outside in that way near enough in my 23rd year.
17. Sometimes getting a new tattoo can make you feel even more deeply embedded in yourself. (Shout out to Nevada at Firefly Tattoo).
18. Apparently those horrifying little moments of having baby fever have in fact descended upon us. (Gotta steer clear of the baby section of Target from now on.)
19. A little patience goes a long way with the people I love. And knowing that I have the patience now to be what my people need makes me feel really thankful.
20. It really is okay to not know what you’re doing. It’s uncomfortable and maybe some days it will make you want to just choose things just so you can feel like you know what you’re doing, but it’s worth it to sit in the uncomfortable to figure out what you really want to be doing.
21. Maybe using planners really do help you keep on top of your goals and dreams (and day to day adult things???). So use one. Please.
22. Doing the things can be everything from writing five poems in a day to flex your creative muscle to just simply making your bed when you get up in the morning because even that feels impossible sometimes. Not all steps are live changers, but constantly taking small steps can change your life.
23. It’s finally starting to sink in that this whole “work in progress” canon that I’ve been talking about for a few years now is something that I always want to be. I always want to be in progress. To be growing. To be learning. To be breaking and rebuilding.

BONUS: Getting older is actually kind of rad, even if it makes you feel fragile at times. So cheers to 24.

So yeah, maybe the song is wrong when it says that nobody likes you when you’re 23, because this year has been the biggest year of learning to love myself and having confidence in who I am and who I am constantly becoming. It has been the biggest year of growth for me in general and I’m so thankful for all of the hard moments and the amazing moments I got to experience.

24 is just around the corner and I hope that this year brings even more change and adventure than last.