Gilead

It's hard to believe its the end of August. It feels like summer has just started, the heat has just started sinking into my bones, I have just starting laying in the sun to dry. But already the air is too cold in the morning to venture out without a sweater and I can see the sunrise peaking over the trees when I get up in the morning. After 3 years of being together and 8 and a bit months of being married, I finally feel like I'm in a spot where I enjoy our relationship. Not that I didn't enjoy other parts of it before but they all felt like they were just this illusion, like I was splashing in the shallow end of the pool. After so much pain and grief in our engagement season, getting married in a way that didn't feel right to me (it was the only way I could have comprehended then but looking back all the decisions I made were out of pain and not at all what I actually wanted), buying a house and renovating that house and sex coaching and wondering why it wasn't w...

I think the reason people have a hard time describing marriage is that its impossible. not to describe it. I mean marriage itself is impossible. by the time you meet your person the two of you have been nicked, spun, carved, gashed and inflated in a million different ways. and now you're supposed to join these two pieces together like drops of water. I was talking to my friend and life coach this week and she was asking me about my goals for my marriage. I said to her (I wish I was joking but I wasn't) "To not get divorced." we were talking about goals and dreams and the desires of my heart and here I was saying that my goal for marriage was to survive it. sounds romantic, huh? But if you've lived inside my marriage for the past 8 months you would know that not getting divorced is a huge accomplishment. I've found myself texting married friends asking "Is your marriage this hard too?" I've looked long and hard at this issue of marriage. I...

I wanted to die. I tried to die. I thought the only way to escape the pain of my life was to check out of my life. I felt alone, and confused, and used and abused and like no one cared and like I couldn't be myself in this world that was built on making people like me swallow their stories. Maybe you feel like you're swallowing your story too. Maybe you feel like the only way out is to hurt yourself. I know because I've been there. I thought the only way to keep living was to tell my truth on my skin. And when the only way you can breathe is by hurting yourself killing yourself doesn't feel like a choice anymore. it feels like a dimly lit exit sign in a room that is closing in on you. Either way is going to kill you but at least this way you have the hope of something better. at least that's what I told myself. I was tired of the depression and the monsters in my mind and swallowing my truth to try to fit into a society that is built on people faking it. I was...