lost cicadas

"this cicada song could be heard
 all the way in San Francisco, I’m sure
 their pulses looking for home 
 but our backs are flat against the earth 
 to feel grounded in something pushing back at us
 it feels like I’ve been here a thousand times 
 for the first time. 
 and somehow, it’s okay. 
 this wind will carry you with me
 until our feet don’t tire from carrying songs
 what were never meant for us"

I’m lucky. The place that I work is only a couple blocks from the inner-most downtown area of my city. I’m walking distance from all the hustle and bustle I could possibly want to be a part of. But I’m also just minutes away from a grassy area hugging the canal, where I can feel a breeze that wasn’t meant for me pushing through some shady willow trees on my lunch break. A rare quiet space so close to downtown, even with everyone passing through in that noon hour.

It’s been awhile since I’ve taken advantage of this space. It’s been awhile since I’ve sat on those man-made boulders that form steps reaching towards the water. And it’s been awhile since I’ve been reading in my spare moments instead of doing anything else. But today the sun was too perfect and the breeze felt good on my skin, so I found myself walking the path from campus to that shady spot when I clocked out for lunch.

Have you ever had that gut feeling hit you that you’re exactly where you are supposed to be in that moment? Where you look up and just know that you’re going the right direction? The last two years, most of those moments for me have completely taken me aback. And most of them were in moments that I got to share with someone I love. Where we both could stand there and just sense that no matter what happened moving forward, we were right where we were supposed to be in that moment together. Well, I made my way down those grassy steps today and it felt like I could breathe again after holding my breath for far longer than I could have realized.

I sat down in the shade and started reading searching for sunday by Rachel Held Evans. It’s a book that I didn’t realize I needed until I really started digging in. It’s about loving the church, then feeling lost in the church, and looking for a way back into this thing that you temporarily lost faith in. Not that you lost faith in your beliefs, but lost faith in the systems that are cultivating the beliefs around you. I’m only about halfway through this story and it’s everything I couldn’t have asked for, but I’m glad it’s being given to me anyway.

The way Rachel talks about feeling so secure in her identity in the church and then losing that identity and trying to find your way back to it is something I feel so deeply inside me. Even outside my faith journey, I’ve tried to hold onto these ideas that I thought made me who I am but I’ve been realizing over and over that I have to let go of how I thought things worked and who I thought I was supposed to be if I ever want to reach myself again. That feeling of not being sure if you believe the things you tell yourself about who you are or the feeling of not being sure if the things you believe in are truth can be so disorienting. But Rachel said something that sums up my experience with keeping on with this work in progress anyway:

“It’s [searching for sunday] about why, even on days when I suspect all this talk of Jesus and resurrection and life everlasting is a bunch of bunk designed to coddle us through an essentially meaningless existence, I should still like to be buried with my feet facing the rising sun. . . Just in case.”

This idea is what keeps me going most days. That even though I don’t feel whole or feel like I’m where I’m “supposed” to be in my life, I still want to do what I can to get to that place because some day I might actually get there. That even though I know that no one has it together so it’s fine that I don’t have my shit together either, I still want to be a little kinder than I have to be just because I don’t know if the people I’m coming in contact with are struggling just as much as I am.

I sat outside and just felt like the cicadas were letting me – and anyone who took the time to hear them – know that it’s going to be okay. It felt like they were saying I am home, even in this grassy area. That even though I’ve been feeling a bit lost most days as of late, it’s going to be okay. At the beginning of one of the chapters, Rachel quotes Gregory Alan Isakov’s song “The Stable Song” by saying “I threw stones at the stars, but the whole sky fell” and I felt compelled to listen to it again right then. The six-minute song felt like worship when I was just laying on my back, listening to it mix with the lost cicadas.

I’m not sure why I decided to go for that walk today, but I do know this work in progress heart needed that grounding energy. I needed that breeze to remind me that things that leave us have a way of coming back. I needed to read the words that I read from this book.

I hope you find yourself where you need to be today too. I hope you feel as close to yourself as you can in this moment. I’m walking this mess of a story right alongside you.

"remember when our songs were just like prayers
like gospel hymns that you called in the air. 
come down, come down sweet reverence, 
unto my simple house and ring... and ring" - the stable song

Talk soon.

Free Hugs

This past Saturday I was able to participate in my second year of Indy Pride. It was another great day, spent outside celebrating my community from 8 a.m. until the festival closed down at 11 that night. Just like last year, it was incredible to me how good it felt to be in this crowd of strangers and be able to just exist exactly as I am without fear of judgement or condemnation or negative reactions because of my sexual orientation.

Amid the rainbows and glitter and music though, there were people walking around with shirts that said “Free Mom Hugs” and “Free Dad Hugs”. I’ve seen them before, and I’ve seen online that people show up to support with these shirts all over the place.

Seeing them felt like a sucker punch this year for some reason.

I got lucky. When I came out, even though there was a period of adjustment to the idea that I am gay, my mom and brothers were all completely supportive of me. I don’t for a second take for granted the fact that I did not have to lose people I love the most because of the way I experience deep, meaningful love.

Even so, seeing these people offering hugs from “dad”, made me incredibly emotional at one point in the day. My dad has not been a part of my life for the last eight years. He did not see me work and graduate with my bachelors degree. He didn’t know what I was going through, the people I hung out with, the stories I lived through. He didn’t see me buy my first house. And then sell that house about two years later. He didn’t see me get my first full time job and then outgrow that job and move myself to Indianapolis. He didn’t help me move into my new apartment with my dog. But more than all the countless memories that he will never be a part of, he does not know that I’m gay. Or if he knows, it’s from hearing it through the grapevine. I have never sat down with him to tell him that I was in love with a woman. That I was in a relationship with an incredible non-binary person and that no, I’m not simply confused and I won’t be marrying a man one day.

For the most part, I’m okay that he isn’t in my life. He made that choice for himself (and for me). I am so incredibly proud of the life that I have built for myself and I am so thankful for my mom and brothers for being so close to me. But when I see those gentlemen at Pride offering hugs from dad, it made me break down for a moment. My heart breaks for all the LGBTQIA + kids whose stories don’t have the ending that mine does with my family. I ache for the kids who are shunned from their families or kicked out of their house or are rejected by the people who are supposed to love them unconditionally.

So I actually went up to these three people who were offering their parent hugs and I told them that I’m so personally appreciative of them showing up for others like they do.

One of the gentlemen in a “dad hugs” shirt said, “You know, we’ve been out here the last three years and I can’t tell you how many people actually come up to us for hugs all day throughout the parade and festival. You always kind of wonder if it matters that we wear the shirts and show up..”

I told him that it matters more than they realize. Even if people are nervous to come up and actually get a hug, I told them that just seeing them brought me a sense of love and calmness just at the thought of being held and supported by someone’s parent, especially if you can’t get it from your own.

Then one of the other women told me about how none of her kids are actually LGBT, but that when her son was in high school a friend of his was outed to his parents and then kicked out. They ended up letting him stay at their house until he found a more permanent place to stay and she told me that from that moment seeing her son’s friend show up looking completely lost because he was being rejected by the people who should love him and want to see him the most, she decided that she wanted to be an advocate for those kids. She said that she knew that her son’s friend wasn’t the only one who was in those situations and she’s found places to volunteer her time throughout the year to be there for these kids. But she said that for her, it just feels important to show up to Pride and offer hugs from mom because she saw how important it was in the moment to have a mom, any mom, care about the kid who showed up on her doorstep not knowing where he could go next.

To the “dad” who said that he wasn’t sure if what they did makes a difference, I want you to know that you really do make a difference. Pride is about celebrating our community, and you are a part of our community as allies in the most important ways. You make us kids without supportive families feel seen in ways that we don’t always get to be. You are a show for support that we may not get to experience in our own lives. So thank you for showing up. Thank you for coming back every year. Your presence matters.

This Pride season, lets try to be there for each other in ways that we sometimes forget to be. We’re all human. All doing the best that we can as works in progress. And celebrating Pride isn’t always easy for everyone.

Know that I love you. Know that you are blessed. Know that it’s okay if a hug from a stranger can feel like healing.

This time.

The past two days I have been rained on when leaving work. That five minute walk to my car has presented me with rain drops instead of sunshine, but for some reason it feels cleansing rather than bothersome.

We’ve done this before, you know. Rebuilt our life. We’ve had the hardest days and the longest nights and we’ve still rolled ourselves upright, stretching ourselves into existence the next day to show up for the people who are expecting us.

And no, it isn’t always easy. And sometimes it takes a couple days to be able to actually make it to the door. But the thing to remember is that we do always get there, keys, phone, wallet in hand, finally ready to try to greet the day with something besides a jaded world view.

Right now I think we are still in the barely-making-it-to-the-door stage. Yesterday I left my wallet at home. It took me two hours to find it when I returned at night. I had apparently placed it in the fridge, where I got my water from before I left in the morning. I traded one necessity for another without knowing it. These days are hard and they are heavy and they are lonely. So fucking lonely. But today when I was walking to my car on lunch, no umbrella in hand because I wasn’t expecting to be greeted with a shower, those raindrops started hitting my glasses and I couldn’t help but smile. I just stood there for a moment, looking like a strange person just smiling at the rain, and it felt like in that specific moment it was okay. That everything was okay. That things work themselves out and we just have to keep ourselves around until it happens.

It was the kind of moment that reminds you that it’s okay to keep struggling because it really will be okay. That the dark parts that are grabbing at you right now won’t be there forever. That we are still allowed to stand in this rain getting soaked in the middle of the day and smile because for whatever reason, the mess of it all just made sense.

I’ve always been told I’m an old soul, that I’ve been here a time or two before. Maybe that’s why I’m able to sit with more patience for my life than some others. Maybe that’s also what makes me so incredibly impatient at the same time. I’ve seen these things work themselves out in the past and part of my existence is just ready for that moment even if I haven’t figured it out yet in this life.

I have no idea what I’m doing. Technically speaking I’m externally trying to keep my head above water in this accelerated 6-week grad class and also keep up at work. Internally, I’m just trying to keep myself here. Trying to remind myself that I am loved and seen and heard by someone, somewhere. That all of this is going to be worth it at some point.

YouTube decided to remind me of a poem by Sarah Kay this morning, when I was scrolling through at 3 a.m. again. “Hiroshima” sang back out to me from that glowing screen and I could only hold my breath for those last few lines.

“When I meet you, in that moment, I’m no longer a part of your future. I start quickly becoming part of your past. But in that instant, I get to share your present. And you, you get to share mine. And that is the greatest present of all. 

So if you tell me I can do the impossible, I’ll probably laugh at you. I don’t know if I can change the world yet, because I don’t know that much about it — and I don’t know that much about reincarnation either, but if you make me laugh hard enough, sometimes I forget what century I’m in. 

This isn’t my first time here. This isn’t my last time here. These aren’t the last words I’ll share. 

But just in case, I’m trying my hardest to get it right this time around.”

Right now, I guess I just feel thankful for those brief moments that I got to share my present with someone incredible. I’m trying to remember that these moments that I’m having right now, these heavy or lonely moments, are just as important as those memories. When Sarah Kay wrote “This isn’t my first time here. This isn’t my last time here. These aren’t the last words I’ll share. But just in case, I’m trying my hardest to get it right this time around.” I felt that.

It was like cold hands on my neck waking me up from a deep sleep. I don’t know what’s coming, but I know where I’ve been. And I’m going to keep trying to do everything I can to be good in this moment.

Talk soon.

I can’t read the instructions..

Have you ever had one of those moments when you find yourself a little paralyzed with the feeling that everyone else somehow has things figured out and it’s you that is the absolute failure of it all? I guess that question is probably redundant, because most if not all of the people I know have had moments similar to that. Those moments when you wonder how you’re even supposed to begin chasing after the things you want to do when you can’t even be sure if that’s what you want at all. Moments when it honestly feels like you couldn’t be farther off track than you are. Where if you had a compass leading you to the right place, you used the needle to patch a hole in your shoe and put the rest in your pack useless.

My point is, we’ve all had those moments of fear of being broken or wrong. In my relationship, my person and I used to have this thing we would say when one of us were just feeling used and broken beyond repair.

“You’re not broken, you’re just IKEA furniture and the instructions are all in Swedish.”

We aren’t broken, we just can’t seem to find the instructions to put ourselves together for the day.

We aren’t broken, we are just being built by instructions that we can’t read.

This little ritual of being there for each other started kind of as a joke to make ( I think) me laugh in a tough moment. We had recently been to IKEA and they, being the pun master that they are, had spent much of our trip there cracking jokes at all the crazy things that items are named there. The difference in language making the perfect breeding grounds for puns at nearly ever piece of mass produced furniture.

So when at some point after that I said in a moment of tough mental health that I felt just broken and didn’t know how to fix myself, they looked at me and told me that there isn’t anything to fix, that we just have to keep building as best we can with instructions we can’t read. Half joke to make me laugh at the idea of the instructions for our life being tucked away somewhere in IKEA’s massive warehouse of home goods but it really did make me feel better in the moment.

It’s probably been over a half a year since we started saying that to each other but it still holds just as much truth to me. It’s okay if I feel a little lost a times, because we really don’t know how to read the instructions given on how to become who we are supposed to be. It’s okay to feel a little confused because sometimes we can’t even find the instructions on this piece of life at all. So we’re all just winging it with every step we take.

I feel like I’m in a strange place in my life right now. Where my instructions seem to have some photos included to show me what things might end up looking like, but I still can’t read the bullet points to figure out how I’m supposed to get there.

I’m in a place where it feels like growth is sprouting up all around me and I just need to hold on tight to keep a grasp on all the things I’ve learned up until this point to bring with me to wherever this chapter is supposed to take me. It’s a little lonely. Especially when you want to tell everything to your person, but you know you have to filter some of it for now until things change a little more. But it feels okay I guess. I know that there is someone out there right now who already knows me for who I really am. And even if I don’t get to see that reflected in them often anymore, it gives me some sort of peace to know that I am loved as I am even in my season of becoming.

Right now, my instructions seem to be pointing to a period of calm. Where I need to remind myself that it’s going to be good for me to slow down and focus on only a few things for awhile. The diagrams included seem to show growth happening in ways that aren’t necessarily visible to everyone. And I think that’s right. Not broken, not missing pieces, just taking some time to read the instructions that no one else can for awhile. And praying all the time to be blessed in these actions. Praying for the ones that I love more than anything to be growing as well.

It’s okay if you don’t feel like you know what your next step is supposed to be. It’s okay if you feel out of place. Just remember that you aren’t actually broken. You don’t need fixed. You are just a work in progress trying to put the pieces together with no instructions. And that’s okay.

It’ll be okay.

Positivity in 2019

On my lunch break today, I found myself scrolling through Twitter, catching up on some headlines and seeing what people were largely talking about in the Twitterverse in my absence. Like so many days, it was INCREDIBLY discouraging. Taking in the 2 a.m. tweets from the US’s Commander in Chief and news about the Supreme Court reviving the transgender ban for military service were good reminders of all the heavy and terrible stuff that is happening around us as we speak.

Honestly, it was just really damn sad and frustrating to read through some of the things that I was seeing on my news feed. So while I was sitting with my doggo trying to figure out where I fit into all of these things that are happening, I just had this feeling in me that I needed to go look at this one particular friend of mine’s twitter today. She had shared a post from the organization To Write Love on Her Arms that showcased their shirt that has the simple statement “hope shines brighter than fear”.

Hope shines brighter than fear.

📷: @emilyrnussbaum #twlohainthewild pic.twitter.com/eLw6Fzz0Ac

— TWLOHA (@TWLOHA) January 21, 2019

Until I saw this, I didn’t quite notice the anxiety that looking at the news had built up in my chest (I mean yes, my anxiety has a pretty solid residency in my chest, but it’s been on vacation lately and I realistically should have noticed this newly filled space in me get heavy again). Seeing the rights of my community threatened and taken away is infuriating and so scary. But I guess this post isn’t going to focus on the ins and outs of what is happening in the LGBTQIA community in today’s culture and climate.

Instead of that, I started thinking about all the ways that I’m thankful to be in the generation that I’m in and in the growing culture that I’m a part of. Before I really get started though, know that I am WELL AWARE that there are so many bad things happening and that my generation is not perfect or even close to it.

The thing is, in 2019 I just want to focus less on the negativity in my life and be more thankful for the small good things are around me. And seeing this post from TWLOHA made me remember that the good really does outshine the bad even on the worst days.

So here we go. I’m thankful that:

1. I live in a society where while still marginalized and threatened by some, it is safe to be out and walk down the street holding my significant other’s hand. To know that just a few years ago I could have lost my job just for my sexual orientation is insane to me. And to know that I am lucky enough to have had the beginning of the path paved for me to live the life I want to, as authentically as I can, makes me incredibly grateful. The fight for rights and equality is no where near finished, but the progress being made daily is inspiring.
2. The BODY POSITIVITY revolution is something that I think we can look at in today’s world and be thankful for. Instead of having one idea of beauty, the media world, for the most part, has embraced or begun to embrace the idea that every body is beautiful and we don’t need to fit one single mold. That shit is powerful to you boys and girls looking to social media and advertisements to see how they should be.
3. Mental Health Awareness is EVERYWHERE (except maybe some government officials brains while they look to make decisions on issues they have no real clue about). Seriously though, even just 8 years ago when I was 16 it was so much less common to hear about mental health awareness and self care in the scope that we do today. Now, people of all backgrounds are encouraged to talk about their mental health so they can reach out to others and we can know that we are not alone in our struggles. This change in mindset is incredibly important so we protect our friends and family and kids moving forward so they don’t suffer in silence.

Are things perfect now? No. I know it might sound like I’m writing about these things with rose colored glasses on right now, but I’m really not. I’m aware of the reality of these issues, I’m just being thankful for the change and growth that we have already seen. Gratitude is important, and I want to bring those thankful vibes with me throughout 2019. We’re all works in progresses, and even though the news really weighs heavy on me today, I know there are some pretty big things to be thankful for anyway.

Come on in…

Tonight I was bringing a piece of furniture to an old friend of mine who wanted it since I can’t bring it with me when I move to Indy in just a few short weeks.  It’s amazing the way we find things to fill a house with when we start to settle in, because I’m downsizing to a much smaller apartment than my house I’ve been getting rid of a lot to things, but I was really excited to bring this shelving piece to my friend tonight. I hadn’t seen her in forever and I was going to get to see her new house. 

What I honestly thought would be a really quick visit with her and her husband turned into me hanging out until the rest of her family (most of whom I know-including her parents who I absolutely adore) got there to have a big kind of post-Thanksgiving meal together. It was so incredible to just hang out and watch her and her older brothers interact while she was flitting about the kitchen making various dips and drinks and side dishes. The way they love each other is just so… nice to be around. And then her parents got there and it felt even better to just step into the side room with her mom and talk for an hour about plays she is working on and the way I want to be a research librarian and how she is really looking into writing a historical novel (of which she would LOVE to collaborate on so I can help her with the fact finding part of it).

To be a part of this family, or feel a part of this family, even for just a couple of hours was just so… nice. and needed, I think. Her mom and I spoke about the daily devotional book she is writing and how we both think that God kind of guides us in unexpected ways sometimes. About how we can be reading a passage about one thing and our thoughts go to something completely different but it feels so strongly like God is there in our thoughts. 

This past week has been rough. Like, incredibly rough. And I have basically been keeping solely to myself besides talking to my mom (who, to be honest, is probably ready for me to get out of this funk after the way I have talked her ear off this week). 

But today it was nice to get to catch up with someone I really love and appreciate. It was nice to see her family and talk with her mom about words and God. It was nice to exist and be with people who don’t want anything from me except for me to fill up their cup and carry on with the conversation. 

To Write Love On Her Arms has a post about how People Need Other People. It’s all about how when we break an arm, we don’t try to hide the break or pretend like nothing happened. We reach out and we get help-go to the doctor, etc. So we should be doing the same thing when it comes to our mental health. When things are rocky, we should reach out if we can. Get close to those who try to understand where we’re coming from. But I think the concept of needing other people is more than that. 

People need other people. Plain and simple. We need quick visits turned into warm nights. We need those tiny interactions with the holiday greeters at supermarkets. We are perfectly capable of learning to lean into the hard feelings of being alone, and I think it’s important that we learn how to be on our own anyway. But we need to reach out to these other people in our lives. 

All of us-every last one of us- are going through something at any given moment. We are all doing our best to get by. And the way we struggle together is kind of beautiful. We lean on each other and push each other to grow and stretch and learn. 

We cry and we talk and we laugh and we get by a little bit at a time. Sometimes it’s all on our own. We laugh with ourselves and cry and write all our thoughts trying to figure out where to go from here. 

But sometimes we laugh and talk and cry with the people around us. Sometimes we just tell each other to come on in and join their family for the night.

We can always be reminders for each other that you and I are both works in progress. We are both doing the best we can to get by and figure out where to go and where we are being lead. 

Seeing my old friend tonight made me feel a little human. It made me feel a little better. It made today a little more okay, even if it is just as hard to breathe tonight as it was last night. 

Thankful for those small moments, friend. Thankful to be a work in progress along side you. Thankful to know my best friend is probably doing the same thing on their own. Thankful.

Treat-yo-self… or something.

Why is it that when we go through a break up, we are almost certain to go through some sort of “treat-yo-self” phase.

You know the one. Where you go out and, if you can afford it, you buy yourself a new shirt or shoes or something or you go to Target and buy a candle that feels good. Or you do the next best post-break-up thing which is almost certainly getting your hair cut or dying your hair. 

Well I checked those boxes off today. Literally all of them. I blessedly did not go out in public until about 5 tonight so the stores were back to normal and most of the aftermath of what is known as Black Friday. 

And my house currently smells like a weird but good mixture of mahogany, cedar, and eucalyptus. I made dinner for myself tonight and I’m wrapped in a cozy blanket and sweater. 

I walked into a salon today and got my hair cut. It’s my favorite undercut that I’ve gotten so far and I’ve been getting undercuts done for over two years. It feels good. It made me feel a little lighter somehow. 

And yes, I am realizing now that this blog post really just seems like a list of what I did today. But really, I guess it’s more of a question. Why does doing these cliche things somehow help? Does it actually help to buy a candle that smells different than you remember them? Does it somehow help to get your hair cut? Why had you put off cutting your hair in the first place? Why is it that it’s so hard to be alone? 

I have two days left of this little holiday break before I will be diving back into work and back into getting ready to move to Indianapolis. Two days to go dark for a little bit and give myself some time to be not okay. Two days to stop holding my breathe and just lean into whatever this feeling is. 

Two days will not fix anything. Two days will not make anything feel better. Two days will just be a chance for me to be me… on my own for a little bit. 

Just because we don’t want things to happen how they do, doesn’t mean we can’t still hope for something different in the future. We have to look forward, right? Even when things get to be too heavy, we have to look out the window and try to see that there is something outside to still experience. 

It’s a work in progress, right friends? The hurt and the lonely and the feeling too much is part of it. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. 

Breakups… amiright?

1900 Days

It’s been around 1900 days that I have been involved with the university that I am currently at. I started as an undergraduate student, became a student ambassador, and then started working full time there when I was still finishing up my degree. It’s now been about a year and a half since I graduated from this place and it’s time for me to wrap up this chapter of my life at IU Kokomo.

This office has seen me grow up.

It has seen me become a critically thinking and involved student. It has seen me struggle to get through finals and through breakups. It has seen me buy my first house and now sell my first house. This office has seen me go from an unsure 18 year old to a semi-confident 23 year old who has a better grasp on where she wants to be going now.

I have made so many mistakes in the last five years and have had incredible opportunities come my way because of my time here. I have traveled the world with this university and gotten to become more involved in my own community.

Now, I have three days left working in this office that I have done so much growing in. And time seems to be absolutely flying by. It’s fall break on campus so there aren’t any students milling about. Everything seems quiet.

I think that feels nice. It’s nice to remember all the long nights I spent in the library and cafeteria sitting and doing homework through my undergrad. To see the empty booth I was sitting in when I got the call offering me my first full time position when I was 21. To take in all the changes that have happened to campus since I first began my story here. To remember the main building as it was before the major facelift it got. To see the floors outside my office all torn up as they get ready to replace them this week, most likely after my last day here has come and gone.

It feels good to look back at the last 1900ish days and know that I get to close this chapter only to be opening such an exciting new chapter of my life.

The seasons are changing and so am I.

My first home is back on the market as I look to move to this new city for work.

I officially begin my new job on Monday.

I will be starting graduate school in January and can register in just a few weeks.

I will soon be waking up every morning in a new city with new sounds and lights and spaces yet to be explored.

I am so incredibly excited for all these things that are about to happen for me. And I am also so incredibly intimidated at the thought of leaving behind the city and town that I have been my whole life. This is a wild adventure that I haven’t yet had a chance to be a part of yet and I’m doing my best to dive into it with my whole being.

I’ve already learned so much about myself through this process of building the foundation and taking steps towards something that I want, like this move to a whole new city. Maybe I’ll make a list of things to rest on when picking up your whole life in the next couple of days…

 

Until then, remember it’s okay to be a work in progress. Even when things are falling into place, it’s okay to fall apart at the thought of all the change.

Be kind to yourself.

Not Yet

A year ago Snapchat had a filter on October 11th, 2017 in honor of National Coming Out Day.

At the time, I was definitely out to myself but not to anyone else in my life.

So I found myself taking a photo of nothing and putting that coming out filter on it with the caption “Not yet.” written on it. I saved it to my photos and forgot about it for the most part. I didn’t know then if I would ever really come out *for real* or if I even was brave enough to.

So here we are in 2018, a full year after I took that photo and told myself that I wasn’t ready for embracing this identity that I knew described me but that I didn’t know how to claim. And it feels crazy to know that just a little over a month after I took that photo, I was dating an incredible person who identifies as a lesbian and was coming out to my family one-by-one.

It seemed like every week I was coming out to a new person or breaking through another barrier that I had built for myself at the time. November of 2018 was a huge month for me. I was learning daily more about myself and what I liked and wanted and NEEDED in my life. It was when I first started to truly claim myself, all of myself, as a gay woman.

It was terrifying.

It was liberating.

It was damn hard.

But today, I am filled with this huge thankfulness of how far I have come in a year. From where I stand now, I can see a little bit of where I want to be going and I can see where I came from.

I am so thankful for finding a shirt that makes me feel like myself.

And learning that a bowtie and jacket is my preference over wearing a dress.

I am so thankful for family who tries hard to love and support me even when they didn’t have any idea that I identified any different than they always knew me.

I am so thankful for new opportunities that will let me grow in ways that I haven’t been able to before.

I am so thankful for having someone in my life through all of this to support me and remind me that it’s okay to feel all the things that I have felt through this past year.

I am so thankful to know, without a doubt, that my God loves me all the more for allowing myself to claim who I am and how they made me. After struggling with Christianity and religion for so long because of not feeling accepted by the church for who I knew that I truly was, even if I wasn’t out yet, it feels incredible to know that I was created to love in this beautiful way and that I am able to feel so much because I claim who I really am as best I can.

My coming out story is one of the lucky ones, I think. My family didn’t try to hide me away or reject what I had just told them when I came out. My coworkers were happy to see that I was happier in my life because I was allowing myself to be seen fully. I know that there are so many other LGBTQIA people who have not been as lucky as I am when it comes to embracing themselves and I hope that as time goes on I can be a light for some of those who do not have the support that I had and currently have.

In honor of National Coming Out Day, I just wanted to give myself the space to think about where I was this time last year.

To think about how “Not yet” was pretty much the anthem for my life in that moment and how far away the possibility of claiming my identity seemed.

It has been one of the biggest “work in progress” seasons in my life so far. It has forced me to choose to radically love myself when no one else might.

So here’s to you, past, future, and current self. Remember that even in this moment you are a work in progress… A person still becoming.

Be gentle. Be well.

a FORCE

Objects in motion tend to stay in motion until acted upon by another force.

We’ve all heard this countless times since we were in third grade science class. I didn’t realize until now that I always equated it to other inanimate objects like balls or feathers dropped from high places instead of to people as well.

One of the most striking questions that I love my significant to ask me is “What do you ACTUALLY want to be doing?”

I think sometimes it is easy for us to keep doing things because we aren’t sure how to change our own trajectory. Or even if we see the steps we need to take to get out of the valley we are in we may be too afraid of the what ifs to take that first step. For me, when my person asks me what I actually want to be doing, it isn’t a slight towards me and my current choices, it is her seeing that my heart may be set on something different and instead of following those dreams or ideas I am staying in the safe, comfortable zone instead. I may have made a home out of my fear of change but all it takes is asking ourselves where we would rather be to open that door and walk out.

So, what do you ACTUALLY want to be doing?

Do you want to be working with students in higher education?

Do you want to be writing?

How about changing professions all together?

Have you thought about going back to school?

Should you pick a different degree?

Is it okay to have a couple jobs in the interim of finding your next “real” job?

Do you need to have a “real” job at all to be happy?

Today I submitted my application to a Masters of Library Science degree program. If you’ve followed this blog for a couple months, you probably know that back in the spring I applied for a Business Masters program and was accepted. But as I met with the adviser and looked into the classes, I just wasn’t excited about it. (And please don’t misunderstand me in the coming words, you don’t have to be and probably won’t be excited about every little thing you do in life.) I went to start classes in the summer and found out that the class I was supposed to start that week wasn’t actually the right class for me to be in as a beginning student.

Frustrated, I spoke to the professor and talked to others who had been in the program before me and I ended up dropping the class. And then I dropped the second class that I was enrolled in for the summer as well. And then I simply didn’t register for classes for the fall. I didn’t bring grad school up to anyone who knew that I had started that process. I tried to steer conversations with my colleagues away from the topic if it somehow came up because some of them are currently in grad school as well. Simply put, I felt like a failure for not feeling like that program was the right thing for me.

At some point along the line before I dropped the classes, my significant asked me if I was looking forward to this program. She knows I love learning and was looking for a challenge now that I have been out of school for over a year. I remember trying to come up with logical reasons why it was a good choice and why I wanted to do it – all of which were true, but they were such weak reasons to stick with something that my heart simply wasn’t in. So when I told her that I was going to drop those classes, I was afraid she was going to think I was just quitting it because it was going to be hard.

But she wasn’t disappointed in me. She was glad that I was listening to myself and taking time to find what would fit me better. A separate time that we had been talking and she asked what I wanted, I said that I would love to be a librarian one day and get to be surrounded by words all the time like that and hopefully get to work on a research team aimed at preserving local history.

Fast forward to the last couple weeks and I finally made the decision to lean into this thing that I had saved for “one day” and hope that if it is something that I truly want to do I will figure out a way to make it happen. And today I finally submitted that application. This person who had previously not been in motion now feels like she is back in motion.

I think I’m learning that it’s okay if being a force means that you finally sit down and write 750 words to describe  why I think I should be a part of this grad program after weeks of not being able to. You can be a force and only take tiny steps each day to reach your goal.

So my challenge to you is to ask yourself what you actually want to be doing. To take a tiny step to put an object in motion.

You’re a work in progress. Lean into it.