So you’re feeling stuck? I know the struggle… I want to teach you about extrapolating a decision today. This is something I do all. the. time. when I can’t choose between two options and I feel like there are overwhelming downsides to every option (or they are both freakin’ awesome and I don’t know which is better).

I’ve been much more intentional in how I use words lately... I’m learning to allow my light to shine and honor what’s right for me even when it’s scary. This adventure brought me to a realization that made my love life so much easier…

I’m looking around me at the ruins now… My faith is shaking, but I know I’m stronger for it all. And I know that the part of me I’m leaving behind on this coast will always love you with her whole heart. She’ll always want you back, take you back, joyfully invite you in with warmth and love… She hopes you’ll talk me out of this. But the rest of me won’t survive the wait. I have to go.

When I was crying over wanting to see the ocean every day, I was telling myself this story that I was too busy building a stable life to take a break for the ocean. I was also telling myself that once I went, I’d never want to leave. So it was either/or and all-or-nothing, combined, that kept me.

What I love about this approach to resolving a conflict is that it takes away the attack feeling and allows you to really humbly and fully express how you are feeling, without pointing any blame. It opens up an avenue of conversation without immediately sparking defensiveness.

This is not a giving up, but a surrender. Giving up is to lose hope. I have more hope than ever. This shift is a coming home. It’s leaning into the embrace of my beautiful loving core… and the love and acceptance I have always longed for more than anything else in the world.

Five days ago, I found myself with a blade to my arm and no idea how I’d gotten there. I’d sent away my most precious love and found myself alone on the wrong edge of the world. In that moment, I looked down and saw what I was doing… and felt sheer terror at the realization that I never consciously made any decision to end my life.

One thing I’ve been really shocked by as an adult is how oblivious much of the middle class is to true poverty and what it’s like to be poor. People think not being able to afford a family vacation one year is poverty (never mind the fact that they spent their vacation money on a shiny two-year-old pickup or a cabin a few hours north for vacations). I wasn’t that kind of poor.

I had a lot of evidence that life was black and white. People were either good and loving and kind and not-strangers and safe to talk to, or they were bad, abusive, toxic, and had intentions to harm me. But my beloved friend was different, and I found her perspective endlessly inspiring. Where I was scared, timid, or guarded,

she was curious, friendly, and she just had this air of “man, life! I know how it is.”

There are humans, and then there are humans who are aware of their own mortality.

I don’t know about you, but I’m the latter. I was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at just a couple months old, and it wasn’t lost on me that highschool may well have been the middle of my life. Other kids were going through rebellious phases while I was potentially experiencing a literal midlife crisis at 15.

I get this feeling a lot in the spring- when the rainy days take over and it’s hard to believe 80+ degrees and non-stop sun are just around the corner. Add the frustration and doubt of a flopped launch in my business, and I’m pacing around the apartment wondering what I can possibly do with myself. Should I just keep poking my failure with a stick? What now?

Here’s what I learned about self-love on a rainy day.

In the past three years, my confidence has exploded. I’m sure some of it just has to do with life experience, but I can think of a few things I’ve done or realized that probably had a lot to do with the sudden change. Let me tell you about it.

A new idea has been dancing through my thoughts since that little bird in me finally found the courage to take flight. It’s an idea about freedom and what it means to be all my own, to be fully myself as a woman. Back when I thought being myself was selfish, I always told myself I needed to grow deeper roots.

Once, I lived a life where I never wanted to wake up at all. I wished I could just stop existing. I struggled with depression and frequent suicidal thoughts. I felt very strongly, or else I felt numb and hopeless. I’d wake, disappointed that the sun was already up, too tired to move. The light felt too bright, my limbs didn’t want to move. I was tired.

I would sleep another hour, or four, crawling out of bed in the late afternoon. So how did I get from there… to this joyful life of freedom, peace, and beauty?

Resistance is friction in life. It’s anything tough, annoying, different, uncomfortable… It’s anything that rubs you wrong or bothers you or scares you.

Here’s how to work through that.

At first I resisted it SO HARD. “Don’t be a feminazi,” some rotten little voice in my head would mutter when I’d start to let my anger out. And back into the box it would go- because I wouldn’t want to be a bitch. or a feminazi. or a psychopath. or something. Right? Because I was “too much” and I needed to “chill.”

I didn’t earn my entire degree at once. I took a year-long break right in the middle… and I’m so glad I did!

This is what I what I wish someone had told me at 17 and 18 years old.

A new idea has been dancing through my thoughts since that little bird in me finally found the courage to take flight. It’s an idea about freedom and what it means to be all my own, to be fully myself as a woman. Back when I thought being myself was selfish, I always told myself I needed to grow deeper roots.

“Sit still and feel gratitude for what you already have,” I’d tell myself. I felt like I was too much of an air sign (Libra here)… I was too flighty, spacy, inspired. I’m a writer, I have a lot of ideas and love to create… But when it comes to tangible things (like the steps it takes to actually execute an idea), I’ve always found that a lot harder to connect with.

Now, I see that to be the change you wish to see, you have to be part of the world around you. You have to participate. I’m reading this book on leadership rooted in the life and philosophy of Gandhi right now, and it’s incredible to me how angry Gandhi must have been at times. I’m looking at great leaders and rebels who have inspired me throughout my life and who inspire society at large as well… Rosa Parks, MLK, and Gandhi always stand out to me. Mother Theresa fits in there for me as well…

My first thought this morning knocked the breath from my lungs… “Half a lifetime together isn’t enough. I want more time with you.”