Technical Difficulties

Way back photo. I'm this now but dark circles under my eyes and longer hair.

I miss this place. Or rather, I think I miss how I felt about this place, this blog.

The last few months I have just felt so quiet, like even those things I'm sifting through and figuring out, they're just not really worth sharing. I use to feel like I had these big, beautiful thoughts, and I was happy to parade them around. Maybe a word or two here, an image there, a paragraph--maybe it did mean something to someone/s sometimes. You're gonna hit the right note if you bang on the piano for awhile.

I write and I post it on this blog, but I wouldn't call it blogging. Much like the way I've been in my relationships (every single one right down to my marriage), I throw up my words and turn up my noise and then slip out of the room.  Vulnerability is not my forte. Now that I'm passionately working on listening, I'm desiring something greater than the solo dance of me on stage, alone.

Hello there. I see you. This is me waving.... hi, friend!

Thomas delivered his rendition of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to the babies before their nap time earlier.  Emerick perched on my lap and I spotted the parallel. I gorge myself on food for the soul constantly. Reading books. Discovering new ideas with friends. Podcasts over dishes. Kissing the cheeks of little souls and wondering what story is inside those smiling eyes. Cookies. (yes, they count!)

I'm always buzzing with a new thought, a new improvement, a new interest, a new project, a new person, a new method. Always something. But there's something markedly different about this season I'm in right now. I feel as if I've been gorging on humility. Not the falsehood of humility, the I'm-not-good-enough or I'm-not-important or I'm.... I'm....I'm....I'm... mememyselfmeMEMEmeeeeeeee!

This humility is me seeing that:

I should be happy for others' gifts as much as my own. (Am I?)

I should seek to understand others as much as I seek to be understood.  (Do I?)

I should give others grace just as I hope for it from them.  (Do I?)

I should reach past independence into interdependence, past myself into community, past perfection into vulnerability.  (Have I?)

I love a stage. I always will. As a kid, I was shy and I was quiet until I spoke and then I was loud. A little awkward.  Like, hey kid, turn down the volume kind of loud. I'm comfortable dancing crazy, writing crazy, thinking crazy for all to see. It's a thrill, a joy, that thing that clicks all things perfectly into place inside of me.

I want to write my life loud. I want to lean into the beauty I find in words. Right now that just looks very different than what it has meant in the past. Now it's this: Journaling more. Being an ordinary mommy with no more of an agenda that to serve and seek to understand her children (by things no more extraordinary than measuring flour, listening to his dreams of ninjas and speaking in a calm voice when he's lost his cool for the 3rd time in less time than it would take me to nurse two babies). Reading lots and nodding to those voices different than mine. And listening to others (especially that wonderful husband of mine who has been waiting for me to turn down the volume for years).  I'm trying my best to weave authenticity into my days rather than run here each time I think I've found a tiny piece of it.

Blogging is so weird, isn't it? Here's my mind and heart. Bon appetit! So is dancing in front of large crowds of people I don't know and I love that too. I can't help it. I've tried. It's a sickness.

I'm not leaving here. Just rearranging some things.  And hoping to let down my guard, join in more, and show you I'm a happy mess who is a great many things hiding too.

I'm having some technical difficulties. Voice. Audience. Purpose. Pretty much everything important when it comes to writing. I'm praying when the mic comes back on, you're still here.

Much love and coffee.
Ash