Thoughts
Photo by Meagan Abell
i love the words people use to describe me now.
sassy. independent. free spirited. strong. wild.
people who’ve known me for years and people who’ve just met me.
their words are the same.
i think that’s when you know you’re you. you’re consistent. you’re just as you were meant to be. when people you knew before and people you know now use the same words to describe you.
learn to let a little more green into your life.
speak only good and kind things about yourself. because subconsciously, whether you realize it or not, good-or-bad you will step into and become whatever you speak over yourself.
so speak positively.
share what is vulnerable, not what is intimate.
sometimes it comes down to books or groceries.
it’s okay for books to win.
the value in having your own space, really and truly a space all your own will be a part of your life you didn’t know you were missing and will only help you embrace and become more of who you were meant to be.
few people will understand this.
be okay with that.
journeys are, above all, a way of getting closer to yourself.
you chose this.
if you didn’t, choose something different because you have the freedom to choose.
keep only the things that speak to your heart and spark joy.
discard the rest.
this includes thoughts.
innovation happens at the intersections.
it is incredibly dangerous to assume.
you will miss out on so much if you get into the habit of doing this.
there’s a scarcity and sacredness to living slow.
when you’re able to, hold onto it, don’t let anything come along and speed it up.
the people.
it’s all about the people.
do not lose sight in the dark, of what you came to know to be true in the light.
you’re exactly where you need to be to get to where you want to go.
there’s a lot i’ve not forgotten.
about those star crossed days.
heat rising from asphalt we dance-sat-ran on.
to and away from each other.
beautiful, close and young.
it’s a fine line between remembering and being stuck. recalling and wallowing. recollection and depression.
it’s a line i feel as though i’ve almost-all-the-way mastered the walking of.
almost.
i wonder if it’s even possible to all the way master a line like that.
a line like that with a person like you.
everyone looks like someone i know from far away.
the faded colors, the rounded corners, the symmetrical shapes that have captured in time so many moments from so long ago.
i recently spent time with some of my very favorite people and ended up discovering a drawer chocked full of these moments. photographs. creased, bent, faded, preserved, folded, saved over decades and decades of family history.
maybe the effect old photographs have on me is in part due to the fact that i’m a photographer. or maybe it’s the other way around… but regardless, there’s nothing that can get the water works going for me faster than looking at old photos.
i don’t even mean just my own family photos. i recently spent an evening looking at a dear friends old family photos and i was literally shedding tears over them (this also included touching the actual negatives from find the girls on the negatives which also gave me chills). but it’s not just limited to close friends family photos either. it includes forgotten photos of strangers collected by friends too.
i don’t know what it is, but give me a handful of images circa the 90’s or earlier and you’re going to have to hand me a few tissues as well.
there’s just something so special about old photographs.
they’re an archive.
they’re pieces of me.
really important things are not that great in number.
true friends.
sacred keep sakes.
good photographs.
— a revelation i had last friday
this is the time in which you'll be split down the middle on things. in a sentence: it’s a transition from i-believe-this-because-you-do to i-believe-this-because-i-do.
this is the time in which your opinions and beliefs are traveling from the side of blind following to hard earned opened eyed searching and seeing for yourself. which will sometimes entail a fight-for-it-even-when-it’s-hard believing. this is the in-between moment of those two times.
be okay with that.
you'll end up on the other side eventually.
this is the time in which you'll curl up under your covers late at night in the dark and have a three hour transatlantic phone conversation with your best friend. a conversation about what love is.
something will shift in your understanding during that conversation.
don't let go of it.
this is the time when you'll realize it's far more important to look people in the eye and offer them your hand, than it is to be comfortable.
this is the time in which you'll understand, finally, why it is you do the things you do and how you are the way you are. but what's more than just understanding it, you'll love it. you'll love yourself. fully.
this is the time in which you'll finally realize that, really, no one else gives a damn and so you shouldn't either.
this is the time in which you'll realize there's a secret club. that you're the head of it. that everyone, in fact, has their own secret club. and what's terribly important and sacred is the people you choose to let into it.
but in the same vein: don't be close minded and overly selective about who you let in.
this is the time in which you will be told it will be okay.
this is also the time in which you will actually believe it.
this is my hustle.
this is how i work and move and progress.
this is how i make the motion of going forward. of growing. of changing. of being somewhere different than i presently was a moment ago.
this is my going-through-motions.
this is my taking-action.
this is my ambition.
you’re organic.
you have a very european style.
you are doing everything you need to right now. everything you need to accomplish what you need to is already in you.
lovely work. very editorial, soft and romantic, with some quirk.
are you french?
you were made for great things.
but you are really a light and a renegade in the best way.
////
a collection of compliments received lately.
kind words from strangers.
remarks from friends.
passing comments from acquaintances.
we choose what we hold onto and remember in regards to the kind of words people have spoken to and over us.
these are the kind of words i want to remember.
i'm letting go of the rest.
i love you for your just incases.
i love you for your maybes.
i love you for your i need spaces.
i love you for your persuade mes.
i love you for your indecision.
i love you for your doubt.
i love you for your insecurities.
i love you for your i’m really stressed outs.
i love you for your high ups.
i love you for your low downs.
i love you for your smirks and even for your frowns.
i love you for your messes.
i love you for your vanity.
i love you for your i don’t need anybody elses.
i love you for all of your faults, for without them you wouldn’t make sense to me.
there are things in life sometimes that are a mash up of a-little-bit-sad and a-little-bit-sweet but mostly-first-and-foremost very very important.
i’ve had quite a lot of these things in my life over the past few years. something that perhaps is natural and comes most often with this whole being a twenty-something.
but it’s most interesting to me now to look back on the sad things and see the sweetness in them.
and vice versa with sweet things that have a little bit of sadness in them.
but realizing the correlation between both of these kinds of moments is their importance.
their importance in the lessons they taught me. in the becoming they allowed me. in the places they took me. in the people i met in them. they all, in their altogether mutual-sad-sweetness are important.
and they add to the make-up of me and who i am.
i suppose the word for it is bittersweet.
