Manifesto: You were made for something more

Hand holding, elbows brushing, hips swaying, feet stomping.

The world has come alive, awakening from it's winter, and I am awakening with it.

I can feel the revival stirring inside of my body, feel the rhythm as my heart beats in time, resounding against my ribcage

I want to be free

I don't know anyone but no one feels like a stranger

There is music, and laughter, and dancing, and the world feels like it has been lit on fire, and I want to be on fire too

I want to glow, emit the light that has been cooped up inside of me for so long

I want to shine like the sun as it peeks through the clouds, warming my shoulders, reminding me of miracles

The hot lemonade is warm on my tongue, but comfortably so. It tastes like honey, like promise and sweetness and hope. It is warmth and comfort.

We watch as people move like they were born solely to exist in this moment, like nothing else matters besides this awakening, and I can feel my heart awakening too

I am coming out of a long, cold winter

My bones are still rusty and don't quite remember how to dance but the echo of my heartbeat (sounds like a symphony) is a persistent partner, always inviting me to dance no matter how many times I step on his feet

She says my confidence is coming back, he says the light is returning to my eyes, and I feel it all as I am shedding extra layers

I want to experience what it means to be alive

I play a game of feeling everything, letting it be absorbed into my skin like it is medicine, letting it wash over me like the promise of hope

It makes me giddy

Reminding me what it's like to have a voice, to break free from the shackles of darkness, to grow my own set of wings

It reminds me of being seven, when I still fiercely held on to my light, when the whole world made me insanely happy

Ten years have passed, and I have become more jaded, hardened by the world, and yet I still feel that same awakening inside of me

the same hope and potential and possibility

this could be the start of something beautiful

And I want to fall in love with this moment, and these people, and myself and the birds and the trees and the hills and the sky and everything that seems to call my name, begging me, for this one moment, to be alive

I am poetess, story teller, belonging to the universe and the One who created it all, created to marvel and wonder and be fully alive in every moment while my heart is still beating like a drum inside of me

I was made to feel something more than the weight of the darkness as it wraps itself around my shoulders and calls itself warmth

I remember a few years ago sitting at a kitchen table in a house that didn't belong to me, writing on the back of a grocery list that I want to be enough for myself

I didn't know then that those words would become my cry as I wandered through these next few years of my life

I was, and am, searching for ways to be enough for myself

I am realizing now I don't have to do anything

I just have to exist

in wonder

in grace

in love

there is nothing I can do or not to do make myself enough, I just need to accept that I am

I was

And I always will be

I'm still learning what that means

I'm coming back to that place where I live in honesty, not belonging to another human being but myself, marveling at the world

Sometimes it's easy to write from this place

It's not so easy when you are lacking connection, when the pieces don't quite fit, when you spill your coffee and spend the afternoon in bed and stub your toe on your way out the door

I am learning this too is it's own kind of beautiful

If this is crazy than I want to be that. I want to fall in love with every moment of my one wild and beautiful life, I want to see heaven and God and the divine nature of it all in everything, I want to finally learn what it means to embrace my enough-ness and be free

I want to use these wings to fly

Note to Self

This night is sparkling, don’t you let it go, I’m wonderstruck, dancing all the way home, I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew I was enchanted to meet you.

Its days like this where everything seems just a breath away from perfect. It’s this sigh, this sudden release of air when everything feels so beautiful and complete and it’s all you can not to say, “I think I just want to stay here forever.”
You kept whispering the words over and over again in your head, “If this isn’t happy, I don’t know what is.” Because it was beautiful, and magical, and everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Every minute of it took your breath away and you just sat there, repeating over and over, “Remember this moment, remember how you feel right now.”
Breathless. And Fearless. Loved, and oh so very blessed. Like the luckiest girl in the entire world.
And on the ride home, you look in the rearview mirror and you see it, that sparkle in your eyes, the one that’s been missing for a while. You are here, you are alive, you are beautiful in this moment and you are happy. You are loved and blessed and this is what it feels like. This is what it feels like when something this perfect and this beautiful happens before your very eyes.
You almost forgot what it felt like, didn’t you? The magical beauty of laughing until your face hurts and being so close to people that love you that it feels like nothing bad can ever happen to you.
Remember that moment. Remember today, remember how you felt and how everyone looked and how full your heart was of love and hope and beautiful things.
This was your moment. Don’t you let it go.

Do You Believe in Magic?

I always was writing stories.
I remember writing this one story when I was younger inspired by my Grandma. It was about a wishing well.
There was this little girl who was staying at her Grandma's house for the summer and at night, her Grandma would sit beside her on the bed and they would name all the teddy bears lined up on the shelf for the tenth time that night and Grandma would sing.
Right behind the house there was this well, and one day the Grandma gave the little girl a special coin to throw into the well, something she'd gotten as a girl. And so the little girl threw this coin into the well and made a wish. She wished for her family to be together. And, ending as all good fairytales do, the story ended with the little girl's parents coming home and her family getting to be together.
I remember writing this story, with all my spelling mistakes and grammatical errors, and thinking about my Grandma. I thought about the nights I would sleep over at their house and fall asleep on her pale pink sheets after naming her teddy bears for the tenth time that night as she would sing softly to me.
This was back when life was magical, when fairytales came true and little girls could grow wings and fly. In fairytales, anything could happen. Ordinary girls could become princesses and mice could sew dresses and dancing around the living room with Grandma was like being at a ball.
There was this one day back when I was in fifth grade and I was doing my math and I was so frustrated and mad. And then Grandma would come and she would tell me that I needed to do my best and keep a positive attitude and maybe one day I wouldn't hate math so much. That didn't really happen, but she did tell me something else. She told me that even if there was this one thing I hated, there would be more things I loved, and I needed to hold onto those things. Love always wins.
My Grandma taught me about fairytales. She taught me about playing jokes and dancing around the living room and love.
And then somewhere along the way I lost that belief in fairytales. Stories didn't always have happy endings and life wasn't all magical mice and dancing in the living room at the ball.
There was no one there to remind me to believe in love and a little magic. And so I just forgot.
But before she died, my Grandma gave me this snow globe. Inside is 2 little birds and when you wind it up it plays His eye is on the Sparrow. I keep it on my bookshelf and on those days when I'm feeling less than magical, I shake it up and turn it on and let it play. Sometimes I'll twirl around my room, pretending I'm 6 again. Sometimes I'll just watch the snowflakes fall.
But by the time the song ends I'm reminded of a world where things are much more magical than they first seem. Where I'm never too old to believe in Once Upon A Time.
I never told her how the story ends. But here's a little hint:
Dear Grandma: Once upon a time your little girl learned to fly.