it's been a while

this roll was over the course of months. my birthday in may, cocktails, grilling two whole fish for the first time (not to mention that it was my first time ever using a charcoal grill). social distant hangouts with friends (because that’s now a thing in our worldly vocabulary), girl biker gang, july 4th on a sail boat, fly fishing in co, seeing old friends for the first time in a while, hugs, tired i-slept-on-the-ground-all-night eyes, and some more moments. now, those are all the concrete moments that i can remember; touch with my hands. internally though it was a lot. there aren’t many words that suffice in order to explain what things have been like. maybe i can sum it up by saying that no one ever told me life would be this hard. or maybe it’s just that we no longer have the courage to be like a child? either way, life is truly messy. I made a decision a few years ago to go through it rather than around. and while that might sound full of bravery and peace, it’s been a storm. detours left and right. sometimes i feel like i’m going in circles; sometimes i feel on top of the world. other moments are filled with darkness that seem unending. laughter is still a companion but underneath, there lies immense self doubt, fear, anger, questions without answers, discomfort, anxiety. i’ve made a conscious decision though to learn how to be most loyal to myself first. to the weak places within, the places that have always been asking for help with no attendance. i’ve lived a whole lot of years where loyalty to myself came last or better yet never came at all. i want to invite myself back into my heart before anyone else is invited to live there. life isn’t all about finding someone. i think it’s more about finding the person you’ve always been underneath it all. the most holy of processes. the most sacred. the rest is just a bonus on top of all of that, i think. if you’re out there feeling a lot of things die within you, even maybe the version of god you once knew, just know you’re not alone. better to go through it than around. anywho… those are some of my thoughts from these last few months. and…. as per usual, here are some of the artists i’ve been listening to lately: bon iver, big red machine, volcano choir (noticing a theme here? basically justin vernon anything and everything), leif vollebekk. hailaker, angelo de augustine, and probs more i don’t remember. mostly just listened to “if you call” by leif vollebekk and angie mcmahon on repeat. like a billion times. you should too. okay goodbye for now. talk to you when my next roll is done.