A Decade of Introspection

With the new year quickly approaching, I sat down to write and reflect on this past decade. I wanted to share it to be an encouragement to you, dear reader, in whatever stage of life you or your loved ones may be in. Life is complex, messy, and full of beauty and transitions.

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At the start of the decade, I was living within a world of depression, listening to my demons, finding solace in darkness, deafening my reality through near-daily drug use. 

I became addicted to that lifestyle, so encompassed that it itself tried to suffocate me. And in a last ditch effort, playing the odds of Russian roulette, I left everything and moved across the country. 

That’s where I was able to meet myself; I learned my love for writing, and drew closer to my sister. I learned to throw out religion, and draw into a relationship with God. That’s when the healing happened. 

I got clean from cocaine, opioids, and was freed from my long-standing eating disorders. I was able to begin to think clearly, openly, honestly, vulnerably. I wrote everything down. 

I met my husband and we fell in love quickly. We got married shortly after. There is such beauty when two imperfect people come together in partnership. We learned to embrace conviction and challenges. We learned how to speak to each other with truth and love. 

I learned that healing is a journey. For even though my freedom happened in a moment, the demons were persistent and continuously tried to make a home out of me. I sometimes succumbed to them, but more often, I rejected them. I was able to build this muscle. The resistance became easier. Depression is no longer my normal. I’m filled with so much more joy and warmth and happiness than I ever thought possible. 

I see my early 2010 self, and my heart is moved with compassion. I’m just so thankful that I held on for a little longer, and moved forward with the loving words from the small, still voice in my head. 

It feels like every year becomes challenging in different ways, and that our exposure to complex experiences increases. I think it’s meant to be that way. Even if our hours, weeks, years seem to be the darkest or the most dismal, there is a bright and beaming hope.

More than anything, I’m filled with anticipation for the growth to be had: the soil, the seeds, the shoots, the fruit. All I can be is full of gratitude and awe for the contrast between the beginning and end of this decade. 

And while my mind can’t fully comprehend it, I know that still, the best is yet to come.

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This past decade I wrote a book, sharing more of my journey: the struggles, healing and the all the in-between moments. It’s titled Morning Air, Morning Light and is available through this site. If you’d like a book, but are unable to get a copy due to finances, send me a note here; I’ll be sure to send you one!

Illustration by Regan Smith; photo by Eliza Miller.

Awakened

It’s hard for me to explain this season that I’ve lingered within the past couple months. I want to describe it as a slumber, but I’ve been awake; not in the way of an awakening, rather, that moment where eyes open only slightly in the morning, and you roll back over into welcoming warmth of the bed. It’s been almost lethargy, a depression that I masqueraded as ‘resting to recharge’ to pacify my lack of understanding for the current season.

I’ve recognized it for what it is. While I have thought that I was ‘recharging’, neglecting everything that inspires me, I was really punishing myself in hopes of a deeper understanding. My personality always wants to grow, stretch, learn. But I was wanting to learn, only stripping away all else. I was pausing my life, hoping that I’d have an epiphany that would change my world and maybe other’s too. This idealistic concept never came. I don’t think it would ever come in this state. I wasn’t living life. I was sitting at a prideful pause, rather than a state of stillness. I was missing stillness’ humility where growth truly incubates.

The irony in it all is that I have learned one thing: that to learn I must lean not on my own understanding, but through discernment in all things. I’m pursuing this art to marry the two together, discernment and living. I’m finding that I don’t have to fear fumbling, that I’ll be guided once I relinquish control and solely trust. I can be confident in knowing that deeper soul-growth won’t graze by. I’m living with my eyes wide open.

When My Heart Awakens

January 15, 2018

I woke this morning a little after 3 AM. I scrolled through photos, scripture, and sheep in attempts to resume my slumber. I felt a gentle tug to part from my bed and to begin writing, editing, learning. 

After scooping up my dachshund-min pin mix, I circled up our metal-spiral stairs. Much to my surprise, my lively eyes traced the trails of unbroken language, spoken to paper. I wrote until the morning was nursed into maturity. Here is a small passage, that I softly share with you, reader:

When My Heart Awakens

It’s exquisite. 
It’s unique. 

Obedience opens the doors to a productivity phenomenon,  
an all-awake and oh-so-alive euphoria. 

I was able to witness the darkness turn to light—
epitomized by these pages, 
this window pane. 

Outstretched shapes silhouetted the sky, 
the sun began to leisurely rise. 

The clouds are purple now, dusted with grey. 
A glow, growing richer, deeper, warmer. 

Beneath, 
the bare sky, 
screams its shine. 

I swell in spirit, 
as the fierce and fiery light anoints these pages. 

Apricot beams radiate into my art room, 
and moments later, 
entirely illuminates the ambience. 

The Unknown’s Known

Today is the day,
littered clouds, bare branches
with bright crimson cardinals—  
thankful for all preceding, 
the stretching, a solemn swallow, 
yet dancing with their song. 

In quiet prayer, 
gazing upon my future, 
equipped and encompassed by grace.  

Sun high, with sidewalk steps, 
I will be standing in the subsequent, 
a slung smile and weathered skin,
beaming back on today.

Uncapped

September 30, 2017

I wrote this letter a few days back for my husband, Ricky, as we approach another marriage milestone. Each year is a milestone, in our era, where the divorce rate is a heartbreaking fifty-percent. There is no couple that experiences only the sweet drops of honey, without encountering the sticky moments, too. I wanted to share this letter, with the permission from my love, along with some old disposable-camera photos I sifted through earlier this week. I couldn't be more thankful for our growth and the beautiful love that we reflect and ricochet, a mirror-facing-mirror. 

. . . 

I’m seated stationary on the big block of concrete that overlooks the green ivy leaves and the dingy downtown river. It’s our favorite urban escape, where we bring our twenty-pound pup on our thirty-minute lunch breaks. 

Tomorrow is our third year of being married to the other—a momentous occasion. Though our dating year was darling and the newlywed hours beautiful, this past year holds paramount. We stood together, against all odds, fighting for each other rather than opposed. A deep, saturated love is birthed when it is a committed choice, rather than a happenstance feeling. For feelings flee faster than a lightning strike, vanishing in an instant, revealing its true selfish state.

But commitment and engaging to love through all endeavors is where true love runs, rich and pure. This is the love that refines every atom, our makeup challenged and tested. How a partner acts within adversary is when honest intentions are uncovered. 

I have had both these types of love with you. 

When we got married, during the golden hour’s amble, I didn’t think my selfish love capacity could increate any further. As the breeze which defines evening from afternoon nipped at our lungs, I was wholly smitten. I was naive in the art of loving through commitment—as all those who have not pulled a witness to sign, expressing direct vision of oath and vow. 

These past few years have been heart wrenchingly beautiful, exposing and expunging all that does not mirror our maker. You’ve never stop trying to, either—the greatest trait that I unknowingly own in a husband, life partner, three years ago. It’s rare to hold a loved one who consistently strives towards conviction.

I'm thankful that you found that in you. 

You have been patient and gracious with me, honest and true. I’m thankful for this endless transparency. My heart still sings when I’m with you, and you join in—together singing praise and giving thanks. 

Your transformation as a human is unparalleled. You are my home, the recipient of all love letters, my greatest joy on this temporary earth; we hold a love no capacity can climb. 

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Airplane

August 27, 2017

I went to Atlanta a few weeks ago, for a business trip. We boarded onto a tiny eight-passenger plane, an intimate aircraft where pilots told us to tap their shoulder if we needed anything and where strangers conversed with others. For our flight total duration, we trailed along the sunset–shifting from Nashville to Atlanta. It was magic. I scribbled a short poetic note on the flight, and I wanted to share it with you. 

Airplane 

Ears popping, my eyes scanning the pesticide track patters within the circle and square lots below. My eyes meet the river lines—their origins and their outpour. The clouds, watching the drops percolate through the weightiness of the world, creating something beautiful for bystanders below. 

I’m thankful for the view, snapping a few photos every moment or so, naming the thanks even in the small things: this book on my lap, the forty-thousand foot view, the gentle drops of the aircraft, the chatter of one stranger helping another. 

To the right are a plethora of beautiful billows, foamy and frothy. To the left are the cotton ball clouds lay beneath the aircraft, wind-raked and lightly packed, transparently texturing the sky. I hold on to this moment.

We drift along the sunset. In the distance, I see a series of clouds that remind me of those shared in view with my husband on our honeymoon cruise. I don’t wish to go back, though. Eyes hang in the thick of the fog, unmarred by nostalgia’s notorious spill. Every while further from the last provokes deeper understanding, prolongated past with each mile leveling a closer parallel to the sun’s stage.

 A deeper, richer color saturates our love—kindred to the day’s finale.