“I expect I will hate these photos. It’s going to hurt to see myself as I am right now. I feel so ashamed and disappointed in myself for where I’m at in life. But I want to document the hard and the bad times as well as the beautiful highs… One day, someone’s grandchildren will be glad to have these photos and the stories they tell… So let’s make some art!”

Maybe all of this will shift… The thoughts are raw and the concepts and quotes and ideas and ideals are all coming together in a soupy mess in my mind. I’m doing my best to sort it all out and be conscious of the path I am walking, but there’s no comfort of black-and-white on this road.

She was pleading for the space to be filled with a warm body and endless flow of gentle attention. In reality, that looked like an anxious, needy woman desperate for someone to smother and receive constant validation from. Cringe, cringe, cringe.

Those thoughts shape-shifted quite a bit within just a few days of being in a loving home full of gentle, truly kind women. The healing was natural and the change in me was so strong that even revisiting toxic habits and reaching out to people best left in my past wasn’t enough to put me back in the state of mind I’d been in before.

I’ve always had an interest in the contrasting sides of philosophy and the natural world. The way you can’t see the stars unless there is darkness, the way some people only know how to experience love when there is pain…

While I love facing fears and overcoming obstacles, I’ve chosen to approach my joy in the same gentle way I approached sadness and other heavy feelings: I am creating a safe and intentional space to experience this emotion… to become familiar with it and to navigate the discomfort it might bring without expectations, and while honoring the needs and wounds that reveal themselves throughout the process. I’m doing this in consistent, patient, steps… and I know that over time, I will begin to trust myself with this experience of joy.

It’s pouring outside and three years ago, I would have jumped out of bed and ran outside to dance in this rain without a care about soaking my hair, eager to embrace the cold. I’d laugh and look up at the sky. Shivering with an open smile, I’d delight in a hot shower and cup of tea to warm back up…

Things are different now. I am different.

Regret threatens to breathe life into a much colder side of me.

Despite the way I’ve so desperately sought love in romance, when I really look back on my entire life, it’s the female friendships that were the most mutually rewarding, delightful, and joyful. They were the least destructive and the most genuine. This isn’t anything against men, but there’s something truly magical about genuine female friendship, and my biggest shift of focus in this healing is to seek out and create more community around myself, especially a circle of lady friends.

I’m calling it financial trauma, and what you see here is how I’m coping — and trying to share some hint of healing or solidarity with others who are silently going through it alongside me.

When I say I’m romanticizing being broke and I am also romanticizing financial stability… what I mean is that I am finding peace in the balance of accepting where I am and working toward a very big, very impossible-feeling long-term goal in which the odds are stacked against me. But in this post, I’ll also tell you why I am angry… and why you should be kinder to yourself about money, even if you think it’s all your fault.

Here is how I romanticize winter’s darkness and bring warmth and love into the more isolating months of the year. Romanticizing your life can be done introspectively, intentionally, and in a way that nurtures compassion and awareness of the world around you and the human beings whose lives you are touching. Here is how I romanticize winter’s darkness and bring warmth and love into the more isolating months of the year.

Maybe I can show you what I see in the autumn leaves, the double-shot of espresso beneath the tin roof of a coffeeshop in the rain, what lives in the folds of a tiny mushroom cap, and the secrets condensed within tufts of springtime moss. Maybe I can teach someone else the ways you learn to love yourself through the darkest of times, to look in the mirror and not have to lie or be destroyed by what peers back out at you, to touch your body tenderly with the love and caring you deserve…

I’m noticing the way I tend to avoid acknowledging or naming mistreatment for fear of becoming the kind of person who claims victimhood or is self-obsessed and makes a big deal out of nothing… I’ve opted for silence and compliance and keeping the peace more often than not — and the times when I have spoken up have been with people who are quick to invalidate the feelings I express and defend themselves.

I feel tired. Like depleted tired. Shaking hands, blurry vision, and almost no ability to focus… Tired like my mind and body are glitching, and months of rest and reducing stimulation haven’t been enough to revive me. Tired like I get exhausted just trying to be present in the moment… like my attention span is gone and I’m not sure how to get it back.

A full recovery feels impossible, but beneath it all, there is a weary pulse of a part of me that knows how to heal…

I felt grateful to read the words and appreciative of the art she created with her honesty, and I found myself rooting for the story to stay posted and live on, while also wishing I could wrap its author up in a protective hug and bubble far from anything the world might say to fuel the shame-spiral or vulnerability hangover I know, for me, would be just waiting for an excuse to unravel and envelop me.

They say holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for it to hurt the other person…

After a few months of neglecting myself and pouring all of my energy into the relationship, I began to really understand that saying. My resentment burned me up inside and my words became venomous more often than they were kind. I didn’t like the way resentment consumed me, but I didn’t know how to let it go when fuel was being added to the fire every day.

Money isn’t exactly what matters, but money does buy you time in the society we live in… Time and energy. And those are very important to me. Being intentional with my time and energy is something I think about and try to build into my life in systems and routines daily.

I write fairytales and folklore for the child within us all in this chaotic modern world. I write to offer peace, comfort, rose-colored glasses when needed, courage always, strength, and a new way to express love and kindness to everyone you encounter in your life. I hope that my work touches your heart and ripples. I hope you go on to tell stories of you own, repaint the scenes that haunt you, and make peace with any ghosts or demons you’ve been trying outrun. I will share with you as I do all the same.

It might be a little awkward as I find the balance between writing the way that I do and also keeping enough to myself to be responsible for my own well-being, so thank you for your grace and patience.

Not a day goes by that I don’t find myself as part of a conversation about the power of vulnerability and the importance of meeting someone where they are, from a space of non-judgment… and this week I found myself wondering if there’s an art to letting down the walls. What is it that makes true vulnerability so powerful?