grounded growth

Yikes. This year I completely un-blogged.

It would be easy to proclaim that I’ve been too busy or that I made a decision to unplug or that I’ve had nothing profound to say. All of those things have been true at one moment or another, but really I haven’t been writing at all for reasons that have nothing to do with any of that.

This year has been all new for me. There has been lots to say. And most of it has felt too personal, too intimate to write about and publish online. I feel different when the wind blows over me, as if I’ve shed a layer of myself and the layer that is bared is tender and unweathered, unused to being exposed. I don’t know how to write about this time. It feels a bit too much like stripping off my clothes in public. It feels like that tipping point when I laugh so hard that I begin to sob.

So, I un-blogged knowing that there are some things that need to be kept just for me. But while I’ve been not writing and settling into my first, delicious year of marriage, I’ve learned and been reminded of a few things:

-I need to let my friends know the good stuff and the hard stuff; I need them through it all.

-Spanish cheese is delicious but if I eat too much of it, I can’t sleep.

-Just because someone isn’t near me, doesn’t mean they aren’t close to me.

-Dear friends can be made in the strangest places, even in the lobby of a hotel in Santa Cruz.

-When living overseas, a check-in text from someone I love feels like a good hug.

-Hot water bottles are magical. So is the rose tea that Holly gave me.

-Everyone has something to teach me.

-Watching videos of puppies or hedgehogs or baby sloths is strangely awesome.

-Saying out loud what I am grateful for is like giving myself a present.

-I am powerless but I keep on breathing.

-Everyone is going through something, so I can be kind and gentle and listen and not take myself too seriously.

-John Steinbeck’s East of Eden is a masterpiece.

-Letting people in expands my life.

-Being married to Andrew is my favorite thing.

-And, as Rayne has been saying for years: Love Is The Best.