A Little UMPH

I recently told someone that I didn’t consider myself an artist; “I doodle.” Much like how we don’t consider ourselves a writer until we are published, a professional until we are in the big leagues, or needing help until we’ve hit rock bottom.

We paint our days in thick hues of anxiety; of struggle; of love or joy. We choose.

… and how important is it to choose- what you are, who you are, where you plant your feet firmly and take a stand. You get to decide.

Sometimes we need a little push, though; we need a little UMPH in our self-image. We need to think of ourselves not as the monster who is epically failing through life, but as the perfectly flawed human who is trying.

And I urge you to TRY. I mean really t r y.

If I could write out all the fails I have in one day my blog would turn into Comedy Central. I spill drinks on myself and others, trip over flat carpet, have snakes that get into my house and give me minor heart attacks, lock my keys in my car, show up late to everything ever because something is perpetually keeping me, get my flip flops eaten by escalators and auto-correct is NEVER, EVER on my side; especially when I’m texting coworkers. I am queen of awkward social encounters. I won’t go on, you get the point..

If you think you’re not going anywhere because you’re just a huge hot mess; you’re dead wrong.
You need to start seeing that.

You are worthy and capable of so much more than you give yourself credit for.

You’re a writer, an artist, a mother or father, a professional and expert, and most of all, you are one of a kind.

We act like the whole, “one of a kind,” mantra is some giant cliché that just rings hollow.

It’s not. There is only one of you, on this planet…. And I can’t guarantee on other planets, but I know for sure on this one.

S E E that. LIVE like that.

Stop dumbing yourself down for relationships. Stop skipping the gym if you really want to see results. Stop giving your time and energy to people who don’t deserve it. Stop being afraid to say no. Stop procrastinating. Stop only applying for jobs you feel qualified for and start applying for jobs you’re passionate for.

Passion will always win. Always. You would be AMAZED what you can do with passion.
Stay up late and create a plan. I’m not saying this is going to be the easiest thing in the world. I’m not saying you’re not going to lose sleep, and yeah, probably the friends that aren’t really there for you. You’re going to get frustrated and worked up and at times want to climb Mt. Everest for the mere sake of screaming as loud as you possibly can, if it weren’t for lack of oxygen.

Your dreams are waiting.
But they won’t always wait for you.

They will get pushed to the side and hide beneath shiny walls of fake contentment. They will rest easily in the minds of someone else willing to make the sacrifices to make them happen. They will get shoved in the back of your mind, nagging at you to give them attention. They will ride comfortably in your daydreams, and your conversations with loved ones.

But the problem with your dreams living in all those places is that they were meant to come to life.

Stop waiting. You don’t have time. 

Consider your dreams done. 

Room to Go Mad

The first thing I thought when I walked through the door of my tiny place was, "I'm going to write a book here." Which came as a surprise to me, almost jolted me physically for a second, because the list in my head included mundane things like, "How much are utilities?" And there wasn't time in the walk-through to sit and daydream about writing. 

But that's the thing about writing. It never hits you at 9am on a Sunday morning when you're sipping tea and looking at the birds. How picturesque that would be. It doesn't flow perfectly on the page as it's imploding in your mind to be written. Not for me. Some authors are, "inspired at 9am," and that's when they sit at their desk and write. But the whole time the landlord was droning on about this and that (I clearly wasn't listening as I should have been) all I could think, all I could feel, was excitement. Because I've never walked into a place and felt inspired by a room; a setting. A setting that I was in, and my book wasn't. More so, I always hated a room so I imagined it up to be something entirely what it wasn't. 

But something about this place, the almost eeriness of it, struck me. It would by no means be considered your average studio apartment. Brick floors throughout the entire thing, and four large windows with an overlook to Pikes Peak. A kitchen you can barely fit your ass and a pan together, and a bathroom that is just that. A bathroom; no more, no less. 

And yet there is so much space, for just one me. Room for daydreams and white noise and pacing back and forth as the next moment in my chapter eludes me. Room to find comfort in the silence on all sides of me, and rest in the easiness of not knowing what comes next. Room to do nothing, and yet room to create. 

Room to go mad. So you can, too. 

I would never expect to invoke an emotion in my readers, if I hadn't felt it myself. Which is why I'm glad I found this peculiar, all-brick-floor, white-walled, quiet mess of a home to give me space to feel. To, as Hemingway says, sit at a typewriter and bleed. 

I think that's why I saw this place and thought, yes, this is it. The backstage of my first novel. Because just as much of a setting in your plot, you have a setting outside of that. You have rooms you will walk through and jot down a sentence or two, elevators you will ride where eyeliner will be the only thing you can write down a word to make sure you use it, because your phone is dead of course. You will have nature constantly beckoning you to create. And rooms that send chills up your spine, begging you to never enter them again, begging you to put it on paper and leave it there. 

And so I might sound mad. Crazy. Absurd. "It's just a house, with rent the same as any other, Sarah." But that's just the thing, great things come from making the ordinary into something extraordinary. 

Set the stage for the dream you want to pursue. Let it be right where you're at. Let the cold floors you hate when you get out of bed light a fire under you. Let the leaking faucet incessantly perturb you until you have to get away in a frenzy; until you have to do something you love to forget the ordinary annoyance. 

Life isn't a Royals song, more often than not. We don't have jet planes, islands, tigers on a gold leash. But we do have our ordinary. 

We have this peculiar, quirky normal, that potentially could turn into something amazing. 

That's what I urge you to create. 

Once you have your extraordinary-normal, keep creating. Your dream won't live itself. 

Society is Maddening

In writing, our first sentence should captivate the reader. It should be enticing, beg for more of your attention; be bold. So simple you have to reread it, or so complex it slightly unhinges you. But it should also give your reader a clue into what they're about to get themselves into...

I've never really lived by a daily timeframe. Some of my days hold enough in them to last a lifetime, and some of them I couldn't recall had I watched a live reenactment of them. 

I don't do well with clocks. I don't do well with deadlines. Sure, I can be successful in a corporate world and sure, I CAN be on time and meet deadlines. That's besides my point. I don't do well with them. 

Because some moments I am so alive. 

Some moments I am the first sentence in a book. God, those moments were to die for. Those moments will bring me through life. Through all the monotony and mundane ventures my life will bring, those few seconds will come roaring back like slow burning liquid fireworks. 

I wish I could call in to work for a few months so I could write a book that has been nagging at my soul. I wish I could skip rent so I could travel just one more place on my never-ending list of places. I wish heartache was recognized as strength instead of weakness. I wish laughter was the cure-all; I wish numbing emotions didn't exist. I wish people could see inside themselves. I wish more than ever, that people could want to be themselves, instead of a reflection of what society begs you to be. 

And I wish this was something we collectively understood. I wish we could acknowledge and admire the passion inside us. The vibrant creatures we are. I wish we could do more of the things we wanted to, and less of the things we didn't.  I wish it was okay that some of us don't work on clocks; that we live in daydreams and moments that make us feel alive. 

Or maybe it's not a matter of understanding; but rather a matter of changing how this is approached. 

Society is maddening because it quiets the first sentence in a book. Society is maddening because it hushes the voice inside you fueling your dream. Society is maddening because it dwindles the fire down to ash, and never stokes the flame again. Society is maddening because it makes it so easy to coast in a world with no desire or dream. Society is maddening because it works on a clock that pretends like we have time we may not. It makes it easy to wake up, pay bills, work at a job and not a dream, and get caught in the monotony of merely being alive; instead of the high of truly alive moments. 

And so I urge you, come alive. 

Find a way to feed that flame. 

Find a way to be the first sentence in the book you want to write for yourself. 

It's okay for your nights to grow quiet and slow. Being alive doesn't always need to be a hurricane of adventure. But I'm begging you, don't become someone you aren't. 

Let's pretend we're running out of time. Let's pretend the clock doesn't exist. Let's pretend you're living for moments that make you come alive; that, is how you have a life worth living. That, is how you write a book worth rereading. 

a tiny thing called, "small talk."

People are so shy, all they will show you these days is their entire body. Much like how some people are so poor, all they have is money.

I am bad at small talk. I'm awkward and ask  questions a shrink would ask, and then await the answer wide-eyed. Mostly resulting in an uncomfortable silence or a check-mate in the conversation. I either ask 'way-too-personal' questions, or don't ask any questions. I'm so bad at small talk, that I have watched countless TEDTalks lectures on how to get better at small talk so I can incorporate it into my daily job. Pathetic; I know. 

But hear me out. I want to dig deeper. I don't want a blanket statement of how your day was supposedly, 'good.' I don't want to know what you did today. I want to know how you felt. I don't want to know you went to work and then ate dinner after a hard gym sesh. I want to know those silly, random things you think of in the car while you're driving and spacing out. I want to know if the dinner reminded you of that summer night at your parent's house just before they said the word, "divorce," for the first time. I want to know how you work at a place you hate so that you can support this dream you have at night. I want to know how that dream fills you with an overflowing excitement that you'd never be able to contain. I want to know what that dream is. Tell me about it.. Show me. 

Because I'm tired of small talk, god I'm so tired of it. And while I appreciate and am flattered by an occasional, "hey beautiful," message popping up, I really think you have no platform to say that. What is beautiful about me, when you don't have an inkling of my heart? I don't want to have perfectly contoured make up and a flat stomach, okay I want both of those, but I want more to be kind. I want more to be comforting and soothing and fill you with laughter. I want to fill you with questions and curiosity. I want to be courageous and bold. Tell me I'm kind, tell me I'm nurturing and courageous. 

I need to see you in more than just surface light. I need to know you. I crave to know YOU, not your appearance. Not your facade you hide behind. Not the skin you can unabashedly show. You. I crave to know you. 

And I'm not going to be like Miley Cyrus and come in like a wrecking ball. Maybe a mini bulldozer, but then it's up to you to. 

Opening up to someone is scary. Once you fire the first shot, you can't go back. You're committed. You can't undo what's been done. But sometimes, what's been done is beautiful. A shot at passion. A shot at something real. A shot at making a dream a plan. A shot at unraveling all your hidden secrets that have been held in by a tiny thing called, "small talk." 

Dear Mr.&Mrs. WhenAreYouGettingMarried,

Dear Mr. & Mrs. WhenAreYouGettingMarried, 

Can I just start off by expressing my sincere and genuine happiness that stems from all things baby? I see a cute one in a WalMart grocery cart and have to talk to my ovaries like a hostage negotiator, "That's 18 years to life, calm down." 

"But look how soft and smell-good it is!""Stay with me here, you can do this.." 

I get it. They're adorable. My biological clock is tickin'...STRONG... But, if I never end up having a child of my own, it makes me no less of a woman. Which people perpetually try to shove down my throat. "When are you getting married?" 

"Do you have a new beau yet?" 

"How many kids do you want?" 

"When are you having babies?"

"Oh! You're next in the family! Better get started now.."

But I'm single. Or as many classify it as, I'm single AF. 

I don't know if marriage or children or settling down in a house of my own will ever happen.

And that's okay. I don't lose my right to be a feminist and, yeah, I can make a mean damn sandwich. Fancy that. 

And as I'm getting older, I'm seeing people settle, for love and careers and the cheap wine. Please, please don't. 

You are worth so much more than the life you are accepting. God I'm begging you not to settle. Good will come. Maybe not in the form of a handsome, burly man who wants you to have babies, (or wife) but maybe that's not your destiny. Maybe it is! You owe it to yourself to follow your dreams, I hope you never, ever lose sight of that. I hope you never get so caught in society's predetermined ROLE for you, that YOU forget YOUR role, to YOU. Your dream. Your passion. That thing that keeps you up at night thinking about it. THAT, is why you don't settle. 

Sometimes I sit with a tub of Half-Baked ice cream and wonder if I'll ever find Mr.Right. Does he exist? Or do you really just meet someone and are like, "You seem pretty cool and your crazy matches mine so let's do this whole life thing together." And that's that. 

I don't know. 

I do know that you may only get one opportunity in your life to be truly alone. To stand on your own two feet. To be single AF. Because everything can change in a single moment.. 

So no, I don't have a boyfriend. 

But you know what I DO have? 

I have confidence that who ever I let in my life next, will add value to my life. They will ADD to my life, instead of take away, or add stress and anxiety and insecurity. I will know enough about standing alone, that I can be someone to lean on in a relationship. I will be secure and happy on my own, so there's no option but for someone to add happiness and meaning to it. 

Please stop asking women when they are having babies. Please stop asking us when we are getting married. Please stop informing us (as if we are not already freaking out ourselves) that our biological time bomb... I mean, clock, is perpetually ticking. Stop giving women and young girls the impression that our existence hinges on bearing children, getting married, and taking care of said marriage and children. 

Because some of us are single AF, tired of hearing it, and really.. Are doing great things in the world ourselves, and for ourselves. Including following our dreams that don't specifically involve a man and children and a home. 

I want to be nice, I do. I want to brush it off and tell you I'm going to have a baker's dozen children and actually, I'm getting married in the morn! But the truth is, I'm not. It's sort of heartbreaking to me when you ask, like I'm not living up to my potential and I'm a failure if I haven't accomplished THOSE things. Yet, you don't look at the small victories my life has held. 

So let me answer your question; I'm happy by myself, I'm not getting married, and I'm unsure whether I do or don't want kids, or if I will or will not ever get that amazing opportunity. I'm not going to be a crazy cat lady. I'm not going to dress up my dogs in Halloween costumes (yeah, I lied.. I am; SpideyDog is too irresistible) I'm not going to spiral into a pit of depression. I'm going to work my ass off and travel and straight starfish across my sheets and take up the entire bed. I'm going to eat take-out Chinese food in bed naked while I'm reading a book for 7 hours on a Friday night. I'm going to go on road trips and laugh. Man, am I going to laugh. I'm going to look in the mirror and try to love my body. I'm going to run for my health, and not my image. I'm going to say, "I love you," far too much to my siblings and parents. I'm going to annoy the hell out of my manager. I'm going to toast wine to sunsets across the globe and meet people with vibrant stories to tell. 

Most of all, I'm going to lead a full, and fulfilling life. 

And yes, I can do all that with someone else. But I'm happy standing alone. It took me a long, challenging time to get to this point. I hope we can arrive at the same destination. 

I genuinely hope you're happy for me, too. 

Sincerely,

24andSingleAFwithNoWeddingPlans. 

PS. You will not find an RSVP enclosed to my wedding; but I'd love for you to see me off on my flight to Athens this August. 

Thick Shades of Gray

I've seemingly always drawn hard lines in the sand. Good things and bad things. Right things and wrong things. Only I'm beginning to understand that you can't make yourself want what's good for you. You can't make yourself want what is good for other people. 

You can't choose your heart. 

When your whole being screams freedom and adventure and waking up late when you should be at your desk job with banker's hours and a civic duty to preserve, what do you gravitate towards? 

All our lives we are told to hold on to our heart's desire. We read books and watch movies that chant, "follow your heart," in the very thread of their existence, and yet.. Somehow, we can't.

We are not monotonous creatures, though. We are vibrant. Taught to thrive. It's in our being to test norms. To live outside comfort zones. Survival of the fittest. Our fight or flight technique still pulling us towards that fire, away from the danger, but towards something that fate won't touch. Towards something our short lives can fathom. 

Because, we want that dull ache in our heart. 

We don't care if it's pointing us towards ruin; we can't help it. 

The hard lines become blurred, nonexistent. Shades of gray become prominent. 

Sometimes we need to dive head first into disaster for a moment. We have a heart that possesses ruin. We need to let down our walls of civic duty, appointments, and shallow smiles. 

We need to follow our heart; albeit a heart that may be untrustworthy. Life is a catastrophe.

A beautiful, catastrophe; a disaster nonetheless.

But it's important. 

I've fallen in slow admiration for this catastrophe. For the possibility of chaos. 

I've fallen in love with my short fuse for ignorance, and yet my perpetual desire for company. I've come to adore the way I want to write a book, but every time I write, I start to read. The very definition of an oxymoron has grown to describe me. 

And I no longer draw hard lines in the sand. I paint the world in thick shades of gray. Your gray and mine. 

So I say let yourself mingle between the space of your heart's desire, and your civic duty, between right and wrong and good and bad. Because this is where magic exists. This is where love is.

All the Love and Light You Could Ever Fathom

You've lost a friend, I bet, in your lifetime. One that filled the corners of your soul. One that you got a matching tattoo with. One that made milk spray out of your nose. One that picked you up when you were ugly crying. A best friend. A lover. A confidante. A partner in crime. 

You've lost family, I bet, in your lifetime.

One that is entirely irreplaceable. A hand to hold. A laughter that fills the room. A lover. A confidante. A partner in crime. One that filled corners of your soul you didn't even know existed. 

You've lost friends that became family, and family that were your best friends. 

I have.

And tonight I'm missing each one. 

Tonight my memories are ricocheting off the walls of my heart.... and I'm noticing them diminishing. 

Heartache is timeless. All we want in the midst of it, is to somehow forget. To heal. To feel better. To numb the pain of what was lost and move forward in life. How I yearned for that each time I have lost someone. 

And now all I want is each one of those memories back; I want them vivid and alive. I want the painful ones and the aching with laughter ones. I want them in full HD color in my mind, with a repeat and slo-motion button.

But I can't. 

Because my mind is only human just like yours. I can store all the gems of wisdom and moments that made my heart beat a thousand miles a second, but I can't keep them forever.

We aren't forever, our minds aren't capable of forever. 

As time wears on we become increasingly unaware of our past, try as we might to overcome this vicious mind game our brains play as we age, it just happens.

I miss my friends; my family. 

I miss my memories that I can't seem to replay in full effect. I miss the memories I can't even remember! I know they're there.

I miss ferociously. 

And that's okay. 

It's okay to miss someone.

And right now, that's what I'm going to do. Miss them. Send them love and light. Honor their presence in my life. Cherish the memories I can still touch in my fickle mind. Love them. 

Then I'm going to live right now. Today. That's where I am most aware. That's where I can love and send light, in this moment. Because one day, this moment will be a memory maybe thrown out by my brain as unwanted, albeit a grand moment, one that my mind just can't hold. Or maybe it will be a moment that my brain will always hold onto. One that replays in daydreams and dreams alike. One that is shared by multiple people. One that is brought on by a familiar smell, or a faint noise..

A memory that is timeless. That holds on despite our human-nature to let go. 

Our memories will eventually fade, sure.

Our friends and family will pass, sure.

We will even pass.

But we are timeless; our mark on the world is forever, even if not a single person can recall. Because I'd be willing to bet, you are missed and loved and cherished. You are sent love and light more than you could ever even fathom. 

So hold on, baby. Live.