against the grain.

I'm sitting on the patio in jeans and a t-shirt, though I could be wearing shorts.. It's one of those days where you could go either way and be just as comfortable in one as the other. The sun is out, the birds are out, the dogs and I are out... and I'm feeling more reflective than I have in quite some while.

I'm coming up on a year of being fully self employed.. it's been such a crazy journey that it hardly feels like everything that has happened could actually fit into that allotment of time.
My blog has suffered a bit. I haven't updated much since leaving my job in May of last year, but there's actually a really good reason for that.
I think a lot of writers would agree that hurt and sadness are great tools for great writing. That feeling conflicted, brews the most beautiful and potent strings of words. That sometimes in sadness we are the most creative.... and I've been lacking that. I've been lacking that ingredient and more and more, every day, I lose just another small scoop of it
Poetry and writing have been my escape for as long as I can remember. I can so clearly see myself- sitting in my room on the floor, squeezed between the foot of my bed and the front of my dresser, crying the most dramatic tears, while writing as fast as I possibly could. Jotting down my feelings, laying down the stories of a girl whose heart surely was too large for her chest, it's there in my younger years, on the floor of my room, that I found writing to be immensely therapeutic and completely necessary to my existence.

This is not to say that I haven't had any sadness this past year, that I haven't once felt stress or anxiety, that I haven't gone to my closet, which apparently is my new space to let myself unravel, and cried my eyes out, but... it's different now.
Changes in my life are just that, changes...and more often than not, they happen because I have chosen for them to.... I've found that with some of the more unfortunate situations I've been faced with this past year, I have actually become a better, happier person.

Disconnecting has been one of the biggest game changers I could ever imagine. Relinquishing myself from social groups. Disconnecting from negative people. Letting go of people who try to bring their drama to my doorstep. It has all made me feel so incredibly free. I don't surf instagram, I don't invest much, to any time in reading the pointless posts of people on Facebook, most of which are posted by people I quite honestly would hardly consider to be my friends... I easily give up on any and all "friendships" with people who do not bring light to my world or who think my branches are here merely for them to swing on. I just. can't. do it.
I realize that maybe this may make me sound cold-hearted, that couldn't be any further from the truth. My therapy has simply changed.
I'm just investing in me. In my happiness. In my family. In my well-being. In the outdoors. In my boyfriend. In my dogs. In my sister, parents, grandparents. In eating well. In exercising. In mountain biking. In crafting. In making. In my business. In focusing on the activities that make me instead of those that break me. In falling in love with my life. In sharing my life with the people who truly matter to me.
...and the fact is, I couldn't be happier about it.
So that's why my blog has suffered.
It has suffered due to happiness. To feeling free. To disconnecting with the bullshit and reconnecting with the real shit. The real-life shit.
Could there be any better reason to feel like you've failed at something?

My recent days have been filled with working and working out, with tending to my ever growing potatoes, which soon will need harvesting, with planting succulents in every nook and cranny and object that is or could be used as a pot, with hydroponic tomatoes, with playing with the dogs, with more working, with biking, and hiking, and learning about every bird, fern, cactus and mountain range that I can find here in the desert.
Life really feels so whole here.
My dry desert roots are soaking in only the essential, organic, raw and real nutrients that they need for survival, and today, for me... that is more than enough than enough could be.

Wishing you a wonderful start to a brand new week.
Now close this page and go love on something real. Life is waiting for you. Dive in.