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This is as honest as I can be.

My birthday says I’m a Sagittarius.  That’s a fire sign, and some have said that suits me perfectly.  I don’t quite know what that means.

I am 5’3″, I weigh 128 lbs, I don’t know how to swim, and I’m a sucker for a man with a nice smile and clean sneakers.

I’m still learning how to act in public.  I’m often loud in places I should be quiet, or tell the truth without concern of who’s within ear shot.  I’ve been told I’m not very friendly, but am a really good friend.  Go figure.

I like food.  A lot.  I eat my feelings – good or bad – and have to, have to, HAVE TO have dessert after dinner.   I once read I should be with someone that makes me feel like when my food comes out at a restaurant.  I’ve never looked at love the same since.

Most of the time I feel everything good in my life is deserved.  Sometimes–secretly–I’m afraid I’m not good enough.   Not for this family, not for this job, not for these friends or that man.  Not for this life.  I also get nervous when someone gets close enough to hear me breathe.

I don’t have much balance or coordination.  Except when I dance.  Somehow music works magic in my body and viola! I have rhythm and can stay upright.

My son is a mirror.  Loving him is showing me everything I need to work on like patience, forgiveness, and spontaneity.  Being his mother is also the most fulfilling role I have ever been in.  Ever.

I have trouble looking people in the eyes when I am feeling vulnerable. I often look at the walls when I’m spilling my heart out.  It’s less terrifying, like a night light in the dark.  It’s more like I’m talking to myself than another actual human being.

Speaking of, I talk to myself a lot.  I also have a staring problem which has sometimes caused problems.  Sometimes.

I fall in love a thousand times a day: with the sound of my son laughing, the smell of my dad cooking, strangers holding hands on the street.  With the music blasting from my phone, my brand new sweater, and quite possibly one more time…but good luck getting me to say that shit out loud.

I have an odd fascination with North Korea, plants that eat animals, slinkys, and generally things that don’t make much sense.  Probably why I’ve historically stayed too long in situations that just don’t make any sense.  Those last two sentences are proof that I only make sense of things when I say them out loud or write them down.

For the first time in my life I’m in a situation that feels…safe.  And it’s making me realize that I’m actually not afraid of heights or snakes or big bodies of water, but I am terrified of actually having what I’ve dreamed of and of being loved by a heart that matches mine because yo, I AM FUCKING INTENSE.

I just learned that about myself, too.   And you can’t tell right now, but my heart is breakdancing in my chest because I have been way too open for my own good but I will still share it because that’s what this blog is about.  My ears ring whenever shit like this happens… when the truth has the aggressive audacity to be…I don’t know…..

Real.

“We have blemishes and we carry scars.  We are tarnished, tainted, and decorated with filth; but beneath the dust, the dirt, there lives always diamonds, and behind the cloudy night, lives always, a sea of endless stars.” — Christopher Poindexter 

When I was 13, I fainted at a carnival and fell on my face.  I landed on my chin and broke my jaw in 3 places, and my braces cut straight through my bottom lip.  I ended up needing 8 stitches and had my jaw wired shut for 6 weeks.   I was left with scars under my bottom lip that became more prominent when I smiled.  I had a scar under my chin that you could see when I looked up.

So I stopped smiling and started looking at the floor.  I began to hate looking at myself in the mirror and started wearing makeup to cover it up.

When I was 19, I fell in love — really fell in love — for the first time.  It was a maddening, confusing, suffocating, jealous type of love.  The kind of love that isn’t sustainable but consumes you so completely that you can’t plan because you can’t see past tomorrow.  But the day after tomorrow comes, and reality hits you in the face.  Love is love, but sometimes what love isn’t, is enough.

So I stopped loving and started giving myself to people who were emotionally unavailable.  I pretended like I didn’t need to be loved the way I love. I vowed to never love anyone like that again. I settled.

When I was 25, I became a mother.  My sons said introduced themselves in dramatic fashion. I felt the gamut of emotions in a single second and never ever EVER wanted to bury a child again. My C-section scar is still thick, and it tingles from time to time.  I often trace my fingers over the stretch marks left on my skin.

So I stopped wanting to have more children, and vowed to give all of my love to this miracle little boy.

When I turned 30, the man I loved broke my heart in a way I had never before experienced. I loved him so completely, and he simply… did not.  I was bruised and heartbroken. I was beyond my wit’s end and tired my heart’s capacity but still had so much love.  The kind of love with so much promise and so much disappointment.

But something else also happened at 30.  I became comfortable with myself.  For the first time ever, my skin felt good… like warm sheets out of the dryer and freshly shaved legs.  Like, a good stretch on a sunny Sunday morning, except I started feeling like that everyday.  “No,” became easier to say and “What do you want?” stopped being such a scary question.

I started walking down the street with a little extra pep in my step and swing in my hips.  I stood at five foot three, but I felt seven feet tall.  I thumbed all my imperfections — the scars on my chin, my stomach, my stretch marks, my wrinkles, my heart.  I examined them closely, and decided to love me anyway.

So I stopped putting myself down and stopped letting mirrors lie to me.  I stopped making excuses for other people and stopped building the walls I put around me. I stopped ignoring my own feelings and needs. I stopped crying.

I stopped…

And then I began.

I want a Tuesday kind of love.  The sort of thing that involves little dreaming and scheming; the sort of thing that comes paired with too-strong coffee and too-loud songbirds and the drone of the news at 6 a.m. or any time before the sky finds its identity, really.  A Tuesday kind of love that isn’t indulgent, one that doesn’t stop the earth from spinning but maybe keeps us grounded in spite of all that uncontrollable movement.

I want to split the bill and pay the bills and not get lost in some unsustainable delusion where the rest of our lives become inconsequential.  I want us to be human, I want to argue, I want to take too long in the shower.  I want to hear about the horrific lines at the DMV, about a boss who doesn’t get it, about plans to do laundry after work.  I want stories of strangers on the bus, of a child who looked lost but turned out not to be, of chance encounters with high school classmates because these seemingly colorless instances are meaningful when filtered through the eyes of someone I care about.  A Tuesday kind of love, breathing relevance into otherwise monotonous moments.

A Tuesday kind of love is this:  commuting to work knowing that someone cares about what you’re going to have for lunch; understanding that you do not have to be your dynamic, charming, weekend self this time; this time you can butcher sentences and make bad jokes and trip over thin air and it won’t change anything.  A Tuesday kind of love is when weekends and weekdays are one and the same, expanses of time where unpredictable, irreplaceable closeness exists, swells, bursts.  Tuesday is directionless conversation about things that happened five hours or five years ago; its knowing where he keeps his receipts and when he has a doctor appointment; it’s ordering Chinese food or taking his parents out for dinner because they’re in town or forgetting to eat because you’re full of each other’s words and there’s just no room for anything else.

I don’t want to dream through our lives together, don’t want to sleep in, don’t want to put on my sunglasses and pretend that life’s a vacation.  The fantasy is that I want to exist in reality.  The fantasy is to be there for someone on Sunday morning but also on a Tuesday night when the haze and laze of the weekend has worn thin and seems far away as ever.  I want a Tuesday kind of love.

-via Thought Catalog

Be a fucking wolf.  Be a fucking lion.  TAKE NO SHIT.  Set goals, smash them, eat people’s faces off.

Be a better person.  Show people who the fuck you are.  Never apologize for being awesome.

Stay the motherfucking course!

“Tell me who I have to be
To get some reciprocity.” 

Lauryn had me all fucked up.  I had no idea the answer to that question, wondering who I had to be to get some reciprocity.  I mean, I guess that’s my fault, for assuming people just have the same heart as I do — big, and giving, and open.

I want it all so had to be it all, I thought.  That’s the only way I’m going to attract who and what I want. The understanding, the dope, the educated, the money making, the talented, the creative, the driven.  I had to be so good and give so much and love so hard that I became formidable.

So I did.

And I became a fucking FORCE to be reckoned with.  But not everybody was ready for that, and I wasn’t ready for all of that rejection.

So then, I thought, I just had to be relentless.  Keep fighting, and keep loving, and keep forgiving, and keep trying, and keep on keepin’ on.  Because the kind of life I’m looking for –the one I want where you give what you get, and the people around you inspire you as much as you inspire them– is worth all of that.  Mama didn’t raise no fool, and nothing worth it comes easy.  Blah. Blah. Blah.

Hello life lesson number 8573628: I didn’t have to be any different.. I just had to find people that were.

I take reciprocity to a whole ‘nother level, and I will never again apologize for my superpower.

“Because when a dancer falls in love with you, she falls in love with the music you make. She will fall into step with you when you walk together because she knows what corps means, what a greater and grander cause costs. She will assume your motions and mannerisms are as deliberate and meaningful as her own. She will soundlessly observe and absorb you, assigning sensational motivation to your every stir. Your imperfections are artistic, and rewarded. She will recognize you by your cantor, your carriage, and most of all your asymmetry. She fancies the idea of completing each other because your smile pulls to the right, and her smile pulls to the left. It’s all in her head, of course, but what does it matter. She always did like dramatic lighting. She values your very presence in a way you’ve never known. Your cadence compels her. Your pas de deux delights her because it cannot be replicated. She will respect your insanity. It moves her.

Date a girl who dances because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who adores everything you do, every little thing about you. It won’t just be your face or your words or what you two have in common, and it certainly won’t be because you’re convenient. This is a woman who rehearses for weeks on end for maybe one minute onstage — do you think she does anything because it is easy? You want a girl who bites off more than she can chew because she is the most flexible, most sensitive, most ambitious, most big-hearted of the bunch. She will hold ridiculous ideals and outrageous expectations, and she is hardest on herself. She finds solace in rehearsal, because scratching the sublime is only a matter of time. You deserve a girl who knows that a good show requires thick skin and endless practice, a girl who isn’t daunted by any of it. You want a girl who stretches. That is the girl who is unafraid of instability, who understands it and commands it everyday. She’s the one who drills straight through valleys and mountains, persevering through highs and lows because she knows the deeper the plié, the higher the leap. You deserve a girl who doesn’t break easy, a girl who’s prepared for a bit of pain for the sake of of beauty.”

—- Just beautiful.

Hi.  My name is Rachel, and I live an extraordinary life with ordinary moments.

My six-year-old wakes me up with a, “Good morning, Mommy. How did you sleep?”  He says my cooking tastes really good, and thinks the dresses I wear are pretty.  He laughs when I lose to him in every game we play.  Ever.   He always double checks the photos I take of him.  Yup, that’s my son, for sure.

Ordinary mom things.

I never dread coming into work.  I don’t even dread paying my bills.  I like my co-workers, and like my paychecks. I plan events for “work” and I plan parties on the side, which is not even really “on the side.”   I haven’t looked back since I left it, and that feels really, really gratifying.

Ordinary job things.  Ordinary dream things.

We watch Sunday Football in our pajamas.  She cooks for me, while she lays down on the couch – still drunk from the night before. I text with my best friend incessantly, plan happy hours, dinners, and nights out.  Cry, vent, and have the best conversations about absolutely nothing.

Ordinary friend things.

One ordinary moment after the other, strung together in an extraordinary way.  My life, although far from perfect, is perfectly beautiful.   Hello, 2014.

I feel like Im constantly navigating different worlds.  That soccer mom-make-his-favorite-thing-for-dinner-drop-him-off-at-school-read-to-him-at-night world.  That I-already-have-10-friends-and-only-have-room-for-another-half-friendship-in-my-life-and-then-you-showed-up-all-cool-and-shit world.  That I-am-the-best-event-planner-ever world.  That I-work-for-a-dope-start-up-in-SF-with-crazy-hours-and-crazy-perks-and-crazy-bosses-world.

There’s a whole lot of other worlds I don’t fuck with because I’ve only got so much time and so many heartbeats. Can I live?  Actually, can I live with an assistant?

This is my life.

There aren’t enough things that get my full attention in the day, as I’m trying to do it all at once.  Multi-tasking is ruining my life, or saving it.  I can’t tell. When I do get the few and far between moments that require me to do absolutely NOTHING, I don’t know what to do with myself.  I feel as awkward as my best friend in a room full of hot guys.  (If you know her, you know the pain of witnessing that).

Sometimes my single, childless, void-of-responsbility friends want to have intelligent conversations about politics, and music, and you know, important shit that happens in the world.  Most of the time I’m up for it, but SOMETIMES i’m in the middle of signing report cards, writing checks for martial arts, editing marketing copy, having a heart to heart over g-chat and booking my next flight that I’m living in my own world totally checked out to things that aren’t my life.

So I’m sorry I can’t be a person right now. Actually, fuck it, I’m not all that sorry because instead of being a person, I’m being a mother, a friend, a lover, and the best godamn social media marketer you’ve come across today.  This isn’t a bitch face, I just call it my face

I am never not working in one of my worlds, and that’s ok with me.  My brain is always on, and there are mountains growing in my shoulders and in the worlds in front of me.  But I’m moving them.  Please believe.

And as my brain tries to wrap itself around the fact that I’m going to be in a 32-degree city for my birthday, but making sure to be back in time for Christmas Gift Exchange with my girls —  my cell phone makes a sound I recognize as an emergency at work.  I turn that fucker on silent, and I remind myself to send out invitations for my son’s 6th birthday (holy shit, he’s getting old) I try on a dress I just got in the mail, because ain’t NOBODY got time to shop offline, and that same almost-6-year-old walks in and says, “Mommy, I like your dress.  You look beautiful.”  

All that shit goes quiet in my head.  And here I am.  This is my life.

I love it all.  Especially that last part.

 

Sometimes I feel as if I’m losing my mind.   Some days, I just have a day and get lost in my head about all the things that went wrong. 

And then I find inspiration in our conversations, and all is right within me.  I love our talks. 

I found Gail in my dreams the other night, although I still feel lost when I think about her.  I can’t believe that life without her is real.  

I get lost in the sounds of new music, of old favorites.  Sometimes the words sit on the wavelength my heart is on and just..  beats.   

Sometimes, when you talk, I find myself losing the words and getting lost in your face.  Your animated hand gestures when you get excited, your nervous ticks and old habits.  Your words don’t find themselves to my ears, but you’ve got my full attention.  I promise. 

I found the ultimate happiness at Disneyland with my miracle baby and almost lost it when he jumped up and down at the happiest place on earth.  I finally get why they call it that.  I find that he makes everything exponentially better by not doing anything at all other than be himself.  I get lost in the ocean of love I feel for this little boy.   

I find myself reliving memories a lot.  That’s why I keep so many photos on my phone.  I look at a moment, and find myself back there, back in that feeling, back in that space.  

Last night, I watched a movie that had me in tears.  Lost it all over my pillows, empathizing with a woman who lost a baby.  That memory never leaves me, on any day.  

Have you ever seen me eat?  The look of pure joy that washes over my face, losing the rest of my senses and relishing in every texture, taste, and smell.  God, I love food.  

My heart is so full of love, for so many people.  For so many things.  

We lose ourselves in the things we love.  We find ourselves too. 

The last few months have been a cornucopia of feelings.  From Gail’s passing, to Vanessa’s wedding, to Angela’s pregnancy, emotions for my close circle have been everywhere.  Most prominent of those, is love.  

I watched my best friend fall in love with my other best friend’s best friend. (Still following?) Neither of them really saw that coming.  

I listened to one of my favorite hearts break because of it.

I danced as two friends found love in a hopeless place… Literally, they met at a funeral.  (Thanks, Gail) 

My favorite long distance couple turned into my favorite local couple, as he moved across the country to be with his girlfriend. Mama Bear and Papa Bear need to make a Baby Bear ASAP. 

I fell in love the way I fall asleep. Slowly, and then all at once.   That all consuming, didnt know I was here until I was here, smack you across the face feeling is something I am enjoying being witness to. 

I see you.  And you.  And you.   You’re covered in glitter and rainbows, and when I’m not tiiiiired of y’all, I’m loving every bit of it.  

 

(Ok.  I’m over it.  I’m back to hating everybody.)