its only capitalized because i typed it in word. boo.

I think it’s the music im listening to again, but im thankful. That humanity is made up of resilient warriors, who wake up every day and stand up against gravity.

We played in Birmingham this weekend and I was fortunate enough to see a friend from high school, and another from the summer. My high school friend and I exchanged the cliffnotes of the last 4 years and it was beautiful. The reality of addictions and the victory of literally throwing them off the side of a mountain. What a privilege to be apart of each others lives. To know and to hold. We are stories, living and breathing, and sometimes loving.

Im still learning how to balance my time (lets keep a tally of how many times I say that..) and its getting better. I still play all the time and work too much, and BARELY squeeze my work in.. but its getting better. Spending time with good friends and creating space for good conversations. Colleen got it right. You have to create space for those things.

My friend from high school made a great point today about reflecting (senior status) on her life and reading her journals. The process by which we move through life is funny and orderly, but not predictable. She pointed out that though she knew she had grown, she didn’t realize how much until she really slowed down to look at things. Upon seeing the chasm, her next realization was the idea that she needed to be gentle with her younger self. What a great thought. How often do I sift through old journals and think to myself, no wonder this went wrong, or how could you have been so foolish? When in reality, my foolishness is merely my humanity sticking out. Sometimes, we are as dumb as we appear to be in retrospect. But a lot of times, we’re just young, and working ourselves out.  A lot of self-conditioned criticality (an unnecessary demand for perfection. Dumb) has benefitted me in the area of self-discipline, but sometimes I forget and forfeit the soothing gift of giving yourself grace. It was a simple conversation at O Henry’s in Alabama this morning, but how liberating. To breathe in your own skin and relax. To laugh at your youth instead of dig out some sort of lesson.

Ive wondered recently about the idea of trying to cross lines. How often do we challenge boundaries set ahead of us? We talk about inching up to the line to see how close we can get without crossing, but I wonder if a line is too concrete. I wonder if the mentality should be more about thresholds. I guess in some ways those are the same things, but threshold reminds me more of protection than presenting a challenge. Once your mind crosses certain thresholds, it stops giving you a choice and intervenes automatically, because you are either physically incapable, or because your body has decided that you made the wrong decision. I think about thresholds mostly as they relate to pain (esp physical) because that is the most readily available example in my life. My thresholds were crossed constantly because of the influence of voices I heard and the work of my own hands.  And my body shut down for it on several occasions. In some places I received praises for mental toughness, but the honest voices in my life pleaded with concern. I was hurting myself, convinced I could cross one more line and I would be okay. 3 years later, with scar tissue lattices across my abdomen, nerve damage, and a slue of adjustments, I can say that the threshold was crossed, and irreversibly so. I thought I was stepping over lines, to make myself stronger, when in reality, I was breaking my threshold over and over again until my body took things into its own hands and said no.

i guess these are the things you learn as you look at your life. i used to hate processes (your cue to laugh) but now i sort of get them. and i can enjoy them instead of resenting them. i think im finally getting to the place now where i can be gentle with other people in their processes instead of trying to make them speed up, or whatever other power i think i have. life is good and love is an ocean.