Hello friends!
I want to tell you everything and nothing at the same time. How are you? I would promise to be better at this blogging bit but we both know it would only be half true. I am getting better about not over promising myself. So here I am today, a mason jar of Trader Joe’s roses to my right and an orange mug filled with coffee to my left. Nearly 3 months into this year of 33. All I want to do today is show up at my parents house. I would check out the pantry and declare, “We have nothing to eat.” Then I would probably ramble for awhile and go back for a second look. Finally, I would open the fridge and grab what I knew I was going to eat all along because mom would have already told me the best options and volunteered about five times to go get me something. My parents are really great. They are relentless in their pursuit to feed their children. You don’t appreciate this as a kid, because that’s your parents job. It’s only later you realize how comforting and loving it really is to have someone that would do anything to make your belly happy.
I miss my family. I miss showing up at friends homes and sitting on the kitchen counter talking about life. I miss Texas sunsets. I don’t miss who I was. Does that make sense? I look back and I think, “Oh goodness Beth. You made things so much harder than they needed to be. You were so strong. You had it all those times you felt like you didn’t.” I want to go back in time and give my twenty something self a big hug. I want to tell myself to be brave. To ask for that raise I deserved that one time. To stop trying to please everyone. To stay home all the times I wanted to but felt like I had to make others happy. *when talking to myself, I am Beth. A nickname from my little sis when she’s giving me advice.
Garrett once said, “Marriage wakes you up.” And for me, that’s totally true. I woke up without all the things I had identified myself with and I wasn’t sure who I was. Well, I was tired. I knew that. Being engaged was a crazy sprint and twenty-four hours after our wedding Garrett was back at the hospital and I was surrounded by quiet. Blissful, eerie, invigorating, scary as hell quiet. The quiet would be my close companion for a season of almost three years. Woah. If you had told me before, I would have freaked out. But quiet is something I desperately needed and now when I don’t have it I start to freak out a bit. Funny how things work out like that sometimes.
“Forgive me while I feel myself.”
I can’t help it. Bec will send me the funniest John Mayer stories, combined with he’s usually singing somewhere in the background while we’re driving around or cooking, I guess you can say John’s part of the family.
I do want to tell you about a company I just learned about yesterday. Cora is worth checking out if you are a woman, or know a woman. So basically, yes, that’s you. Go spend 10 seconds on this site. I personally really like the Our Story part. “If I was going to use 10,000 of anything in my life, I’d sure as hell seek out a brand and product that made the experience better for me.” *It’s notable to mention this quote is from a man.
I bought a new pair of shoes this week and one of my friends asked me, “So what’s the story. Are you saving a tribe in Africa?” Can I just say, this totally made my day. It’s true. I love to buy with a story. It makes me happy. I love wearing or using or eating something that is contributing toward a good story. If you think about it, all of our purchases are supporting a story regardless of whether we recognize it or not.
Every grocery store purchase supports a story.
That’s a scary one we don’t want to think about. Where our food comes from. How it comes to us. We disconnect. We disconnect from where it comes from, disconnect how it comes to us, and disconnect what it does to our bodies.
Every article of clothing you buy supports a story.
We need to think about the stories. The stories matter. Garrett bought me a pair of punjammies for my birthday several years ago and every time I even see them I think about the story. I think about the sisters I’ll never meet that made them. Even just wearing them makes me feel more connected. It matters. They matter. How I respond matters. It matters to me and it matters to them. This is true of so many things in life. It’s an easy lie to tell ourselves that it doesn’t. That one person alone can’t make a big difference. We need to stop letting ourselves off the hook because it’s easier to be lazy than it is to deal with the feelings of things we would rather not think about.
I get it. We are busy. Things are busy. It can feel daunting because it is daunting. But we have to start somewhere and even one tiny difference adds up and matters. Think about how you can be having a bad day and someone can completely turn it around for you. Maybe it’s a text or maybe someone smiles or holds a door open for you when they didn’t have to. Those few seconds of connection matter.
My tendency is to be unbalanced when it comes to responsibility. Somehow, for some insane reason, I tend to feel responsible for everything. For the longest time I would try to do everything. But I couldn’t so then I would feel like a failure which made me feel like my only other option was to do nothing. That’s not healthy. You basically end up naval gazing and despising yourself and worst of all making it all about you. That’s a terrible story because its just about you. What makes me love my story is when I let others be part of it. When I give it away because I want to because it matters and I know who I am regardless of the outcome. I think we’re influenced and taught to be too invested in the outcome of things. We don’t all have to be champions to matter. Being a human with compassion and integrity is more meaningful than any trophy sitting on a shelf collecting dust.
Well friend, if you’re still here thanks for pulling up a chair. I have had three cups of coffee so my fingers ran away from me. This is too long of a post but I have no desire to edit. I hope you know how special you are because of who you are, not anything you do. Till next time, I’ll just be down here in New Orleans swimming in this humidity learning how to live my best life.
