hey you

I'm just popping in really, really quick to say I'm not done with this space. I all but quit blogging these past few months & I feel clogged. I feel better when I shake out my words & hang them to dry here, and so that's what I'm going to do.

Writing makes me a healthier, happier person. I don't always have something funny or helpful to say, but that's okay. All I want is to show up & be authentic with you.  I don't need to read women who lead extraordinary lives full of adventure way outside my grasp. I just want to read the words of women who are honest about whatever it is they are doing and seeing in their every day.

I was wiping the polish off the living room furniture a couple weeks ago (something that happens when the light hits the furniture jusssssst right) when it came to me why I haven't been able to write for weeks and weeks on end: I'm worried I've been fake here.   I don't know if I really have. That's about as long as I had to think about that thought before I went on with chores and playing referee with the kids and their toys.

To me, there would be nothing worse than being fake with you. We've got enough of that already both in social media & even in real life, especially with women.  There's nothing I find more refreshing than a woman who can be totally herself, who isn't afraid to show up and say, "yep, this is what you're looking at", a woman whose presence you walk away from feeling lighter, not heavier, happier (not guilty) for also being your real self too.

Turning 30. It's been real. It's like a friend walked up next to me & she and I are looking over a table at it all. All the things. All the things I've thought, the plans I've made, the experiences, the stuff, the possessions, the fears, the dreams, the opinions, and even more stuff. All of it.  And this friend is nice and all. Very lovely. I like her. But she's also like "girl, some of this needs to GO." The fluff. The lies. The fears. The unnecessary guilt, the pressure from others, the weight of junk we just don't need. Toss it. Get it out of here. Anything that's not essential--show it the door.

See that's all going on internally. And then I think of writing, and I go all jiggly wiggly and go on with dishes and reading books to kids. Because I like who I'm becoming inside but she's a bit more....how do I say this....ordinary than I thought.  I don't know if ordinary is the right word. I'm pretty sure it is though.

The twins are playing outside on the patio right now.  Alistair has a handful of hydrangea flowers he is working his way through with Emerick. They are shoving it into the t-ball stand their aunt gave them for their birthday. They haven't actually used the set yet.  Thomas confessed after church one Sunday that he broke the bat, and felt terrible about it, crushing the sidewalk chalk into beautiful bits. I told him he had to replace it with his money, but then he worked me so hard with his confession that my resolve to play collector dissolved and I said his natural consequence would be going without the bat (that wasn't even his) and also the chalk (which admittedly, I was glad to see gone because: chalk).  I'm making up parenting as I go. Sometimes I consult a really wise, most favorite book, Making Up Parenting As You Go.

I don't know why I told you all of that. Probably because the twins and their dusty jean butts out there look so cute tearing apart the few sweet hydrangea petals that survived the heat this week. And because this post is sounding very narcissistic and therefore about 1000 more boring than, what I realize now, is essentially my kids destroying the lovely things we own.

Happy day to you in all its ordinary lovely.

If you are reading this, hugs.

your real friend,
Ashley