i feel the urge to share a little about where i am these days, only in a perfectly imperfect fashion, so it’s possible this may seem more rambling than usual. i am just warning you in advance.

for the past many months, i’ve felt the occasional urge to apologize for neglecting my blog. i have managed to restrain myself. partly because blog writing and online time ebbs and flows, much like everything else in life, so change feels natural and inevitable and expected. partly because i am trying to break a bad habit of feeling like i need to apologize for pretty much everything. partly because i think the only person who thinks i am neglecting my blog is me, and that’s only because i have been blogging almost daily since 2007 so anything less than that feels like neglect. i like to blog when i feel inspired. i don’t want to turn it into a should.

i came home from spain feeling rather discombobulated and things have been shifting ever since. well, they were shifting before that – and have been for a long time – but it feels even deeper now.

i am in an interesting place for me. i feel very wordless. there are so many things i want to talk about – style, how beauty is a need, morocco and disappointment, finding my way to my own truth, books and reading and holding a vision, why i cried after buying a pair of paige jeans .. the list goes on and on. and yet i remain without words for any of it.

when i think about it, it makes sense that i am wordless. i am going through identity change and inner shifts at a faster and faster pace. right now, i am rewriting old stories – stories that say that i am worthless, that people don’t like me, that i don’t deserve friendship and love, that i am ugly on the outside and inside. i am learning that what i feel and need and want is important. i am learning that i can go after what i want and get it. i am learning to use my words in relationships. i am learning that people can be annoyed with me and it’s not the end of the friendship. i am learning to eat when i’m hungry. i am changing my patterns of punishing my body and myself for perceived flaws/failures. i am learning how to be vulnerable. i am learning to bear disappointment. i am learning how to not take things personally and how to not to see rejection where it doesn’t exist. i am learning that i am the expert on my own life. i am learning to take emotional risks. i am uncovering and shifting old stories that keep me from doing things i want to do. (goodness. i didn’t realize how much i was shifting until i wrote this and i didn’t even write all of it. clearly i don’t do anything half-heartedly.)

it makes sense that i am wordless. i don’t exactly know who i am from day to day. this is not to say that i am changing; it feels more like i am finding my way back home.

instead, i am refilling my well. i am spending time with friends and exploring portland and sitting in cafes and eating ice cream and hiking. i am making my current offerings even more congruent and working on new offerings related to stories. i have completely overhauled my wardrobe, am finding my way to my own style, had my first brow wax, bought makeup, and my hair is sun kissed again. (someday, i want to write about why this is important for me to focus on right now.) i am putting effort into the things i thought i would do or have someday. someday when i was finally successful enough or thin enough or whatever enough. someday when i was finally enough on the outside to make up for what i thought i wasn’t on the inside. someday when i was finally worthy of the things that i thought were reserved for other people – things like friendship and love and beauty.

it is an interesting, if unusual and unexpected, place to be.