Fear is a relentless backseat driver. He doesn't believe you when you tell him that you know what you're doing. Or that you may genuinely be trying to do whats best for you and for others. Fear builds walls before he tries to find common ground, and fear will keep you from writing your first blog post for just about as long as he can. Today fear lost. 

They say that heart break is about the closest someone can get to inspiration. When you lose love, you also lose the fear of losing love. There is peace in losing the potential for pain. But does the fear of pain keep you from diving in to the beauty of love? I cannot tell you how many times I have been called "crazy" as I stood calmly explaining what my needs were, knowing they may not be met. I cannot tell you how many times I have been told I was "too much" because I am the type of person who commits with both feet. I cannot tell you how many times I have had to pick myself back up and take myself to a mirror, and tell myself how beautiful and lucky I am to be alive. My vulnerability is my greatest strength and my greatest weakness and it is the thing I have to share with the world. I hope that my stories can soften the blow of some of yours, and shed light into the spaces of confusion or joy with words. 

I fall in love quickly and often and deeply. With ideas, and people, and plants, and things. I've learned that the love we give reflects back onto us. Through smiles, and new leaves on our house plants, and friends leaving our homes with bellies full of warm food and laughter. When there is love there is always more love. Sometimes, the greatest love comes from letting go. It is also love to know that you cannot support a friend, a lover, a pet, a family member until you have taken the time to love yourself. To ground yourself in yourself, in your work, in your home, in your friendships and the hobbies that keep you you, and THEN to approach the world offering your best version of you. The catch is that healing takes time, and sometimes you will have to walk through the world a little less than full. It is okay not to be okay. 

When we give ourselves permission to be ourselves, happy and sad, without rushing to change anything, we affirm that our emotions are important. We trust that our feelings are there to tell us and teach us something and when we start to listen, we learn how to work through them more efficiency and strength. We can tell our friends how to support us, whether its taking us out to a bar dancing, or showing up with a bottle of wine and putting on all of "The Lord of The Rings," and its no surprise that when we let our friends support and love us, we strengthen our friendships. Our friends know that we will be okay, and the true ones will wade through the shit with us knowing how epic we are and will be on the other side. 

When fear tries to tell me that I am a burden, that I am crazy, that I am emotionally unstable, that I am lazy, that I am anything that puts me down I tell fear to sit down. To let me be a burden, crazy, lazy, slightly unstable, and a little out of whack, so that I can find my way back again. These slumps are necessary to contrast the joy and happiness in our lives. Strength comes from saying hello to our imperfections, and allowing them to exist within us without letting them consume us. The truth is that I am a little crazy. I am coming to terms with my humanness, and the mess of being a human, and what it means to love in a world that may not be able to love you back. 

I am here to be honest with myself and to give you space for you to be honest with you. It is through these connections that we find peace and clarity in our emotions. We find our truth, and we live it. And when we are allowed to be all that we are, we find out that we are all a little crazy and can embrace it.