I start all over again and I have to remind myself that I can get back to where I once was.
A simple glimpse of confidence and I remember what that feels like.
I grasp at hope because it is always floating to the surface when I think it is gone, inviting me to scoop it up.
I eat and breathe the newness so that I can forget the puddles of tears I sunk my head into last time.
I do forget eventually.
Then crashing into me with full force I remember.
Shit.
I forgot you.
It was beautiful for a time.
You lurk in dark corners, waiting for the perfect moment to slip into my life and silently haunt me.

Sometimes coincidences just happen. And sometimes I feel like fate plays a hand in the circumstances of life to give us something we need. This year was something I needed. In the twenty nine years I’ve been on this earth, I have spent few, if any, of them really examining what I wanted and needed and figuring out how to honor that. In 2012 I did just that. Fate had me see my ex at the store today. We live in very close neighborhoods and that hasn’t happened once in the fourteen months since we’ve been apart. Christmas Eve, eh? Fate has a sense of humor methinks. I needed that moment in the grocery store. It was a reminder of how far I’ve come and how certain I am that this is the path I am supposed to be on. While I honor and respect what we had, I know that while I was in it I wasn’t living my heart’s desire. I am so glad I had my dad with me in that moment. A warm comforting presence sitting next to me on the drive home as I told him how happy I was to be where I am. He was the one last year that took me out to sushi, telling me it was going to be okay as I cried softly in the restaurant. I’m grateful for the moment I had this morning with my daughter. She asked me to sing her favorite lullaby as we laid on the floor of her room playing “night-night.” She tucked me in, made sure I had 32 baby dolls next to me, and gave me the softest kiss. The snow was softly falling outside and we were listening to this song on my phone. If I could have bottled up that moment I would have, especially considering she smacked me in the eye a moment later. Two moments in one day to remind me of how lucky I am (as cliche as it sounds). I have found a love that is based on mutual respect, commitment, and a whole lot of “I’ll love you through that with no strings attached.” Amazing. I didn’t just get lucky this year, though it feels like luck had a hand. I fell and got back up again. Over and over and over (put the record on repeat). I am so grateful I had am amazing spiritual guide to show me the way, a daughter who pushed me to the edges and helped me find strength, and others’ belief in me to borrow.

I guess what I want to say on this Christmas Eve, what wisdom I want to impart is that of faith. I know you are struggling and I know you feel hopeless. And I love you. And you will be okay. I am a testament to that. Hold on and believe. And if you need to borrow some belief, I’ll give you mine.

Moments of clarity elude us most often when we need them. And then there are nights like tonight.

Anxiety. I can start to feel it in the top of my spine. My shoulders tighten up, my neck feels like it can’t do its job anymore of holding up the weight of my head which includes a mind that never shuts up. It’s my cue that I need to do some meditation and figure out what the hell is going on up there.

Most of my life I have struggled with anxiety, always believing that it was the cause and my life was the symptom, when it’s actually the other way around. My daughter is at an age that challenges me and pushes me to my limits (or what I believe are my limits) day after day. What usually happens is I get to a point that I feel like I can’t take it anymore. Luckily, my parents are around to help out if I need a break.

When I go inside and look at why I even feel limits, I’m surprised at what I find. I once heard someone say that anxiety is just you existing in the future. Pull yourself back to the present, and you will find it goes away. So I closed my eyes and pictured myself experiencing a challenging moment with my daughter. I looked at what thoughts were pushing me into the future. What I saw was fear seeping in. A fear that whatever happened next, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Doubt was there too, trying to convince me that I didn’t have what it took to be a mother who can handle moments like these. The next thing I did was to imagine the same scene with those thoughts removed. In fact, I kicked their asses out onto the street and let new ones move in. I remembered all of the trying times I had had as a mother and how they all turned out.

My daughter might be deaf. She can hear just fine.
I will not be able to handle weekends without her. I handle them and enjoy them.
If she screams one more time I will go insane. That’s not too hard, I’m already insane.

Life goes on. No matter what happens that day, we always end up in her bed reading books and giggling at the end of it. So why the hell is my imagination so damn bored that it has to go create some alternate reality in which the world ends through the hands of a stubborn two-year-old?

If this whole thing that I just worked out in my head can work in real life, I may have found something better than medicine. Of course, easier said than done.

No matter how far evolved you think you are, or how many lessons you think you’ve learned throughout your life, the universe is quick to throw some teachers your way. Even thirty-pound ones.

Yelling, running, slamming

Holding, giggling, craving

It all rushes together like a movie in fast motion

Five pounds of pain, five pounds of beauty

Unsure of how to honor the whole messy, wonderful,

ugly, sanctity of it

how to give it what it needs so that it can move

and move and move

and move

There’s been a lot of talk of love
But that don’t amount to nothing
You can evolve the stars above
But that doesn’t make it something

And the only way to last
And the only way to live it
Is to hold on when you get love,
And let go when you give it.. give it.

It’s a pretty melody
It might help you through the night time
But it doesn’t make it easy
To leave the party at the right time

If I’m frightened, if I’m high
My weakness please forgive it
At least I hold on when I get love,
And I let go when I give it

What do I do when I get lonely?
What do I do?
Hold on when you get love,
What do I do when I get lonely?
What do I do?
Let go when you give it.

The world wont listen to this song
And the radio wont play it
But if you like it sing along
Sing ‘cause you don’t know how to say it

Take the weakest thing in you
And then beat the bastards with it
And always hold on when you get love,
So you can let go when you give it.. give it.. give it.

(Hold On When You Get Love And Let Go When You Give It by Stars)

I am so in love with Stars. And I’m quite annoyed that they aren’t coming to Utah on their tour.