full of air and made of paper.

photo taken at the utah state fair 2 years ago.

certainty is a funny thing.

it's interesting to see how it is found to be both a comfort
and a disturbance.

here are some sample statements:
i am certain i will graduate high school.
i am certain i will not get cancer.
i am certain i will have children.
i am certain i will make it on time.

so on and so forth.

we speak with certainty all the time.
"when we have children, we are going to raise them to be christian."
"when you grow up and get married, you are going to see what it's like."
"when i'm in college, i'm going to party like it's 1999."
"god hates sinners."
"i will never have a cavity."
"i will always love you."

the assumptions we utter are so exciting.
the prospect of things makes us feel over the moon.

and then life happens
and we find ourselves in a struggle.

a struggle against cancer,
against infertility.
a struggle to find our soul mate.
a struggle to find out the truth, though we find ourselves in an uncompromisable state.
a struggle to help our austistic child through the public education system.
a struggle to support a spouse who has 6 months to live.
a struggle with an opposing opinion
or hardheadedness.
a struggle to live.

being on the internet last night,
social media specifically,
was a stirring experience.

it was a friend's child's 21st birthday. the one she had out of wedlock when she was a teenager.
a neighbor announced her young husband is going to die of cancer.
a friend announced an engagement.
people were spouting off their political opinions.
a friend's younger brother passed away.
a former student got into her dream school in new york city.
a friend was damning another for their civil rights involvement.

and all at once it was all floating in front of me:
the human experience,
the inescapability of death,
the uncertainty of,
well,
everything.

all at once
i felt as though my bones were hollow glass
that were surrounded by my tissue paper body,
which was about to cave in.

why, yes!
the certainty of which i live my life is comforting.
it makes me feel as though i know what's around each corner.

what a starry-eyed way of living, eh?

how very disturbing certainty can be.
it suggests an immovable path our lives are to take,
an immovable path to our salvation.

but...
oh, the fragility of life!

how fragile my loved ones are!
how fragile my financial situation!
how fragile my safety!
how fragile my bones!

i seek certainty to compensate for this fragility.
we all do.
feelings of certainty combat the grey area we find ourselves lost in.
certainty
or faith that things will work out.

seeing the brittleness of life on others,
made me feel an overwhelming guilt.
i could not sleep soundly while my fellow people are breaking to bits.

i couldn't rest knowing that at any moment
life can flip a switch
and change.

life doesn't cycle around and around like an amusement park ride.
sometimes it only circles once.
sometimes it breaks and a fireman asks you to climb down a really long ladder.
sometimes you feel like it might never end.
sometimes it doesn't even start.

so
all the more reason to eat cotton candy
and wear cowboy boots to the fair.

that frailty that life carries
it is humbling.
oh
so
humbling.

i guess what i'm saying is:


you have to know that your entire life could break at a moment's notice
and you might lose it all.

you must know that.


and all the while
sleep soundly.

live life the way you know best.
like...

it's okay to talk about death in one breath
and cheezbrgr cats in the next.
it's okay to fret about lipstick
or about exams
even when there are worse things.

you just gotta kiss the love of your life on the forehead more often.
you gotta help people.
you gotta be okay with grey area.
you gotta know that when you get a dog it's gonna to die.
you gotta know that you could get very, very sick
or that your child might have something terribly wrong with them.

and you gotta put on red lipstick
and take selfies
and make people uncomfortable with your PDA
and make plans even though they might never come to fruition.
you gotta party like it's 1999
and you gotta keep your chin up.

you simply must hold things close to you while you can
and it's okay to say you have a shred of certainty
even when you don't

because you don't.
no one does.

the only thing we know
is there is love
and it's here
and it's real
very real
and it's here to save us
and change our lives.

it's here even when our hearts break
and our legs fail.
it's there when we lose it all.
always.

i might lose my sweet dog tonight
or my precious family
or the love of my life.

i don't know.
but DAMN it
i'm gonna love hard.

and i'm gonna watch cat videos on the internet with them
and i'm probably going to laugh until one of us can't breathe
and then we might cry for our neighbors
or we might quarrel or disagree over political things.
we might sit silently
and not even whisper that we love each other
even though we know we could lose it all in a fire or something.

and it's okay
because love is strong
and i am holding on to them
with all the strength i have
even when life is so frail.

xo.

to see things a little differently.

i decided that you have to be a little mad

in order to fully experience the spectrum of life. 

but it's sort of like...

maybe you don't have to be mad

but just let yourself be free and wild and rebellious enough

so that people might say:

"that one. that one has gone unglued."

because you have to unstitch yourself,

at least just a little bit,

to let anything else in. 

things that have come unhinged, unstitched, unglued,

those things often end up in bins and piles

ready to be tossed,

ready to be shipped off to the loony bin.

too easily misunderstood.

but those things that appear wrinkled 

or torn

or worn

or split

are often the ones who have ridden the spectrum in its entirety.

fragmented does not mean defective.

you know?

just, like,

be foolish enough to have it all.

even if you end up in a couple bins from time to time.

it's just better that way.

xo.

"talk about what you love and keep quiet about what you don't"

so....
this has been on my mind
and i have to write it out.

it all started when my brother posted a picture of me on 9gag,
which was extremely unflattering, with me in sweats and making a squinty face
and with the caption "my sister being a hipster"
because i was taking a picture of my mom's birthday cake e.g. food.
and people (strangers) shared it on facebook
and i'm sure they had a good laugh over it.
(you're welcome for the link, by the way. i'm not afraid to look lousy in the internet.)
i guess i don't really care
but...

something in me just snapped,
oh-so subtly,
and i started noticing all the labels and just plain ole negativity around me.
it's everywhere
and it has been slowly breaking my heart bit by bit.

it continued scratching at my insides
while my sister and i were watching twilight
and i thought about a little twihard somewhere in the world
who genuinely loves those books or movies
who feels like they have to keep it quiet
because there are just so many voices saying it's worthless and/or stupid
and that people who like it are some kind of uncultured yokels
who don't know the meaning of real entertainment.

and i, to be perfectly honest, shed a few tears for that person
who feels like he has to keep something so unbelievably harmless
and something that makes him so very happy
a secret.

and yesterday.
hashtag vineapp
i saw so many people trying to drive wedges between themselves and the rest of people on social media
or they were somewhat patronizing themselves by saying they were a follower
or "just part of the trend"
for giving in to something that could generally be very cool
and that a lot of people were genuinely excited about
and that a lot of people had a lot of positive feelings about...
something that i think is genuinely cool.

i've been overly receptive to this lately,
i admit it.
but it has been making me so very sad!

you don't have to demean yourself for liking anything.
nothing.
never.
never do you have to do this.
let yourself like things and get excited about it
whether two people or two thousand people are talking about it!

you also do not need to let everyone know when you dislike something!
i know i am guilty sometimes.
in no way am i saying i am always positive!
it's just incredibly boring to hate things.

all of these thoughts made me watch liberal arts again,
which i just love
and i felt inspired to share these clips again.

watch them in order, if you will.




so... i just want to issue a challenge to whoever chooses to accept it, including to myself:

talk about what you love and keep quiet about what you don't. 
because it's actually really boring to hate things.
and
never demean yourself for genuinely enjoying something!

but, ya know...
if you really want to say that you don't like something
let yourself, too!
it's okay! don't be a robot!

i'm just sayin...

antagonism has been accumulating out there
just pooling up
and it just sits there. like, forever.
ugh.

on the bright side,
it has inspired me even further to be a beacon of positivity.
because i don't like heavy metal.
i don't like some books.
i don't like some tv shows.
but i would hope that i could at least say that i try my hardest to see the value in everything
and that other people are allowed to like all of the things that i don't like
and i don't ever have to make myself feel bad for watching twilight while i do homework
or taking pictures of food, because i actually find food to be really beautiful
or wearing fake glasses, which i have done since i was in grade school.
or downloading a popular app
or getting excited about it.
because i want to share the things that make me happy!
and so do you!

because a lot of people are going to like the same things
probably all at once
and that doesn't make them any less cool!
i'm so thankful that there are so many people out there that want to share what they love with the rest of the world,
hoping it will make others as happy as it has made them.
i love it!

you can completely hate trends or you can completely love them
and either way you are still beautiful and amazing and cool and mostly HAPPY.
because either way it makes you happy!
i hope that you will make people feel the same way when they like things, too.


if you need to let your dislikes out,
write it down or yell it out or get it out of your system! do it! be healthy!
and then think about what you love!

because there is way too much in this world that we can love
there there should be no time to even focus on what we hate for even 30 seconds!

am i right??

SO JUST LIKE STUFF, OK?!

xo.

some great advice i've received lately.

i'm having quite the difficult time lately,
and my dear friend mags, being the sweetheart she is, emailed me saying,
"let me help! i'm a fixer!"

and fix it, she has.

so if you need to "get through" anything,
or feel overwhelmed,
or just plain down...

make a list of everything you have to do (and want to do!)...
from moving your furniture around, organizing all your jewelry, finally getting new tires...
to little things you want to do for yourself like shave your legs or wash your hair,
and start crossing things off.

seeing those things on paper
(like taking a shower and fixing a zipper on an old jacket or painting my nails)
and crossing those babies off that list
have me feeling so much more fulfilled.

it's those little things that really up your sense of accomplishment
because it's a priority to take care of yourself, right?

so here are a few things i'm planning on crossing off soon:

- get my rings polished
- finish painting the dresser
- deep condition my hair
- get a new car (ummm like really soon!)
- write in my for-real, paper-paged journal
- get some pictures printed out and framed
- take bruno for a reeeally long walk
- buy a new toothbrush
- finally wear that dress i bought three months ago...
- finish at least three solos for my students by the end of the year.

i'm just feeling really efficient.
it's sooo nice.
i'm really looking forward to seeing those bad boys with lines through them!

see? it's good advice.
i love my mags.

xo.