on my way back to where i started.

feelings come to me in the form of lyrics, sometimes. do you feel the same way? songs that sing like poems are the best ones.

i woke up this morning, my eyes sticky from tears. i don't dream much, but when i do, they're nightmares. what does that say about me? probably nothing i don't already know. i'm a happy girl that's got a lot of underlying fears. mostly of things that could happen. i've always viewed it as the happier you are, the more you have to lose. maybe that's pessimistic. i see it as a law of gravity.

i digress, kind of.

i've said it before. never have i felt so many highs and lows in one 365 day period. the highs have been life changing, but the lows have been too long and too frequent. and ever since i've moved back home, this lyric has struck at my heart. not until today did i realize why. (isn't that beautiful? we know ourselves, underneath it all, better than we realize. perhaps our subconscious has got it all figured out. maybe that's why things work out in the end.)

i moved back to the place i grew up, slept across the hall from where i grew up, and dated (then married) the boy i grew up with. returning home should have been the easiest thing in the world. like breathing.

"life" hit. or the things people like to refer to as life but which actually mean heartache. i was sad. sad from too much change, from growing up. sad from being in the same place but everything feeling different. sad at the way things happened and what i saw and how things happened. sad for everything i lost. sad from stress. sad at the fact that i didn't recognize myself anymore. (who am i if i can't wake up and walk to class? drink hot tea after my shift at starbucks? play in the rain at two-o-clock on a wednesday afternoon?)

and suddenly, this place called home couldn't have felt more like death. like a slow, painful, caught under a rock death. but slowly, slowly...something changed. perhaps weight shifted. maybe chemicals flooded back into my brain. but i felt this real and lovely shift and then it was like, oh hello lungs, there you are! somehow you've been pumping away all along.


and now, days and weeks and months away from the heartache, i can see it for what it was. i've been on my way back to where i started. i moved one hundred miles back to my childhood home six months ago and i've just finally arrived. where i can see, feel, taste and touch comfort. things aren't perfect, they're not the same, but they're mine; and life is actually better. i'm better.

sometimes i wonder if it's all worth it. kind of like one of my favorite movies, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. if you could erase it all, the good and the bad, everything that caused your heart to burst to pieces, would you? i don't think i would.

but, i suppose that's what all good romances are about. loving til it (because?) it hurts. and that's what i'm going to keep doing, every single day.

five (or something like that) things

1. i arrived home yesterday to this guy setting up our new table. shortly after, my sister and brother in law came over with their family to break it in. something about sharing dinner on our new table in our new house felt very real. you know those moments? this is our life. i have to peel open my eyes sometimes and look.

2. just made it home from work (and it's still light out! hooooray), listening to this, about to make these, and these and drink them with some cheap red. (is there any other type? perhaps, but you'd never know it from my pantry.) such a lovely winter evening.

3. not sure what it is about this song that completely undoes me. probably something about 1:47 in.

4. just compiled our christmas wishes. looks like it's going to a bookish affair.

5. as i sit here, i can't think of anything that says it better than this:

a return

good evening, friends.

i've found my way back to this little world. i've been looking forward to this moment--when life would slow down enough for me to sit down and reflect, share the good things, remember and rejoice. it's such a luxury to write down thoughts, to preserve them and share them, don't you think?

i've walked a long way since that last blog post...i've thrown my cap, i've said the type of goodbyes that still make me cry. i've received my first "big" girl paychecks, i've married my sweetheart, i've moved too many times...and all the while i felt this little journal calling me back.

it's been a long, long road through probably one of the most noteworthy years of my life. but as anyone who has lived many years knows, the memorable years are often the hardest. they're sweet, but they come with sting. the sting of change, of endings, and of loss.

but, then i think about all the lovely, beautiful things i've experienced this year. the moments that take my breath away with just how perfect and how fleeting they are. and my god, has it been worth it.

in returning to this little neglected blog, i'm returning to consciousness, to thoughtfulness, and to myself. i can't wait to see where it takes me.