Lost.

losing.  it is a word that describes so much, almost too much.  you can lose a hair tie, or a battle with cancer.  you can lose your way to a concert or your way in your life.  

I've lost out on parts in plays (10th grade), I've lost out on love (college breakup comes to mind). I've lost my sense of direction and my appetite.  We are not strangers, losing and I.

Yet, I still find myself shying away when we encounter each other anew for the day.  Oh hello loss, you want to touch this day as well?  Even now, five years later, it feels as if I could only turn a page, find the answers I skipped over, get the questions right this time. 

My chest feels the weight as I sat with a friend and described not having my mom.  "It never goes away because I find a different way I've lost her every day"  The hollow realization that this the what awaits my own daughter.  The pain, oh the pain, I've never lost the pain.

At times, I am able to manage it, to walk with a slight limp.  Other times it confines me to a never ending cycle of PTSD and depression.  My thoughts spin themselves into a flurry.  The ever underwhelming phrase "it's not fair" comes to mind.  Right behind it, the fear of something worse happening, losing another child, to cancer perhaps, a twisted combination of living both the loss of my mom and my daughter.  

Everything aches, nothing is safe.  I've lost so many things, my keys, my virginity, my naivete.  How does one put an end to the suffering?  What wont be touched?  How can I hold on tighter?  

My thoughts spin themselves shallow.  I am forever without words.

life

 i just went back and read all these extremely introspective and also totally self-centered blog posts from 2009.  in a way it was comforting, because although so much has changed over the pasty 11 years, my internal core struggles have remained the same.  disheartening perhaps, but comforting.  

11 years later and i,

still have no idea what i am doing

still question the role i play in my own life

still worry about life passing me by and not accomplishing anything

the good news is that some of those hard earned lessons i learned with guy stuck around for the single part 2 episode of my life.  jesus, i'm glad i'm not in my early twenties anymore, for the most part.  there was a lot of "why doesn't so and so like me"  also in 2009, i had a crazy year which i documented via a month by month breakdown of my behavior.  there is a part of me that misses that, just this whole self-obsession of wondering about myself.  now i wonder about myself but i also have to wonder about four other people and they let me know an a daily basis that i'm not doing enough.

in all honesty though, i feel a little lost.  i was talking to Christian the other day and i was essentially like "I always thought I would run a marathon.  When I planned my life, I just always thought I would be that girl" and here I am, not getting younger and I feel I have to decide.  Will I run one?  and it's not just that, it's just that I thought my life would go a certain way and it most definitively isn't.  beyond just the bad stuff of course because that would fuck my anyone up.  but i just struggle and i don't struggle lightly with like "should i do keto again" (jokes, i've never done keto guys).  it's a struggle of "why doesn't God do this?"  And then I think well if God is inside of me should i be accomplishing it on my own?  What about all these dreams I have, what the hell is happening there?  Oh you just aren't working towards them?  cool,  

Guys, I compose the best shit in my head.  The best books, the best speeches, the best interviews.  My head is a never ending story of life and love and all of these beautiful things and then I try to get them out of my head and it just doesn't work.  I give up or fall apart.  How do I care about myself enough to get these unlocked?  AND WHAT IF IT'S ALL POINTLESS ANYWAY?  

there's so many creative forces on social media these days.  and i hate social media guys, like i just do.  i freaking hate it and the whole process of it stresses me out, but then i just tell myself "YOU DON'T CARE ENOUGH TO WORK"  I am always so mean to myself, it's a habit I am working on but not very consistently.

The end of the year gets me.  Another year rolling on by.  I still don't quite feel my age though.  As in, I still feel like I've lived way more life than 33 years.  Not quite as much as I did at 29 but still a good amount.  I have experienced the depths of pain and still come out on the other side somehow.  But what do I have to show for it?  Not as much as I wish I did.  

I'm ready to level up though.  I'm ready to not be so consumed by my shortcomings.  I'm ready to just move the fuck on with it.  

and if you want me to give a speech, i'm ready for it.

This is the cost of love



We view love as an emotional thing.  A feeling perhaps? A flux state?  But it's not.  Love is grief, and grief is love.  It devours, you are the prey.  No part of you left hidden when it visits. 

The day Ellery died, I remember staring at myself in the mirror and I couldn't recognize myself.  My face was swollen like I had been beaten.  My eyes were two slits from which tears someone managed to seep out.  My lips were dry and cracked.  My entire body, limb to limb, torn apart.  My stomach betrayed me, making me violently ill.  My head pounded.  I clutched it in my hands.  Willing the seconds, that felt like hours, weigh on me oppressively, while the truth pounded itself into my head behind my eyes.

YOUR DAUGHTER IS DEAD
YOUR DAUGHTER IS DEAD
YOUR DAUGHTER IS DEAD



I stood there, or laid there, or fell there.  The truth seeming to pound itself into every cell individually.  My shock registering one atom at a time.  Everything you knew till this moment has been shattered.  Your entire soul is ripped in half.  A being that came from your being, lungs that came from your lungs, a heart that came from your heart,

is gone. 



This is the cost of love.  Unconditional, pure love where you don't know where their breath ends and yours begins.  The love that entwines you so that the vines never truly unravel from your waist. 

The love that keeps you carrying the suitcase when it feels as if the weight of it might crush you.  Every day for the rest of your life, you wake up with the suitcase on your chest.  You carry it with you to work... to your family.  To your house and car and vacation.  The suitcase is at every sunrise and every sunset.  Sometimes it seems as if you have carried it your whole life.


This is the cost of love.

creation before consumption

a friend recently remarked that in this age, to give life to herself she created a habit of creating before consuming.  so before she hops on social media, before she reads the articles about the must haves... she creates something with her own hands, eyes, heart.





the simplicity in this rocked me.  how often do i look to consume to fill my heart rather than creating.  art is truly an expression of God.  yesterday, i had a heavy day in counseling and my feelings were getting the better of me, add in a rainy day and grey skies and i felt overwhelmed.  so i sat down an did some lettering... fo the first time ever.  my mom did beautiful calligraphy and i've always wanted to try.

in this moment i have about 6 blog posts that i want to read.  but i challenged myself to write here first.  to share even though i don't feel there is much to share.  but sometimes that is what we need.  someone to say, not much is going on, but i am still taking small steps.  i'm improving in small ways. 

i had such a soul filling conversation last night.  a reminder that small things can make or break big things.  a reminder that we are meant to create and sometimes the very things that we turn to in order to "help" us are the things that are holding us back. 

i love self-development books.  i love people telling me how to let that shit go and saying i am a badass.  but i'm done with it for a while.  the first step of trusting yourself is to let the opinions of others fall by the wayside, and i need a break.  i need a break of trying to get through the next step, of following other people's plans, coaching, or courses.  what i need to do is lean into myself.  into the God in me, to get quiet and listen.

to spend more time journaling and less time reading.
to spend more time doing and less time thinking.

2020, i am ready.

Carry the Weight

Sometimes it gets heavy.  The feeling on my chest of just not quite being able to breathe as freely as I should.  The slight trembling in my hands.  The wracking of my brain—— what did I do differently
Today?  Why am I upset today?  What is wrong with me that I can’t get a grip on myself.  Why am I so mean?  Why do I shut down?

Don’t touch me
Leave me alone

I’ve read 101 books on positive mindsets, on shifting your perspective, on turning trials into triumphs and still sometimes I get stuck in this mud.  I can’t seem to pull myself out.  The thoughts are there.  You’ll always be like this Bria.  It’s not going to get better.

So I sit with those thoughts.  I invite them in and give them a cup of coffee.  I ask why they made their entrance today.  We sit and cry together.  It’s dark today and I need a blanket to stay warm.

He feels left out, they feel left out.
I don’t know how to let anyone in.  I am a prisoner - I don’t have the keys (you think they’d give them to me?). I sit quietly in my cell- sometimes I get tired of trying.

Wats the point in trying when trees can strike you down?

What’s the point in trying when you still have bad days?

happy birthday dear one

elly,

another birthday apart.  i hope you are having a fabulous time.  it seems very very unfair that a mom wouldn't get to be with her child on their birthday but i am doing my best to trust that it will all work together. 

we only had one birthday together, the precious one where i met you and laid eyes on you for the very first time.  i miss you so much. 

i gave away most of your baby things, i wanted them to go to little babies who could fill them out now.  i tried so hard to remind myself of you after you left elly, tokens and gifts and material things... but the reality is, no material object comes close to touching that loss.  they are well meaning- but misguided. 

my longing for you is different, i never catch myself wondering where your stuff is.  but when we are all in the car and my heart skips a beat because i feel like we left something, that's when i feel the pang for you.  the knowledge that something (someone) is missing. 

i hope to spread some kindness today, i hope your birthday kicks me into being generous instead of a self-pity party.  i hope to show extra love to Addy, Lane and Nyah in honor of you.

i hope you experience kindness too, i hope my mom or another maternal person wraps you in a great big hug today until i can get to do it myself.  i hope you get to see a rainbow or fresh dew on flowers and feel breezes in your hair. 


I love you Ellery Ann,
I will choose hope,
Love,
your mom

less

2019 is my year of less.

of less noise, distractions, and scheduling conflicts.  less fights with my kids, less toys to step on, less clutter, less hurt, less less less.

the ironic thing is, in getting less- i have more.  more time with my kids when i'm not worried about my things, more time for myself after the kids go to bed.  i've spent the better part of the last two-three months devouring books on minimalism.  i have given away hundreds of pounds of possessions.  an extra comforter we don't need, books i haven't read in years, toys that aren't played with. 

i've dumped out drawers and donated clothes, pulled out almost every item and realized the weight of the responsibility of bringing an item into my house.  

this is not ground breaking information but it is a groundbreaking movement in my life.  i am not the first one to realize the complete overwhelm of the american lifestyle that we work endlessly to achieve.  the feeling of "if we had a little bit more..." 

if we had more money we could finally get out of debt

if we had more time we could finally spend some time with our kids

if we had more more more

i think grief is such an interesting place to approach minimalism from because possessions can mean so much when you go through grief.  you get these things because green was their favorite color, or elephants remind you of them.

it's been in giving my items away though that i have felt truly free.  Marie Kondo said one of the most freeing things in her book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up

essentially

it is not the memories that we need to treasure but who we have become because of those experiences that we need to embrace.

It was so freeing to me.  Freeing to let go of my past because I am no longer in it.  Free to let go of duplicates and trust that when the time comes I can find a replacement.  Free to let go, let go, let go.  Every closet in our house has extra room in it right now.  Lane's room is the last to be fully decluttered as we are in the process of adding shelves to his closet.  My house takes ten minutes to get picked up at night.  I know where most of our stuff is (the garage is still a little bit of a mess and we still have some work to do overall).  

There is room, room in our house for people to walk in and be themselves, for messes to get made because the surfaces are clear, for art projects that before had pieces scattered everywhere.

I have gotten more of what matters by giving up what didn't.