Thoughtfully and Faultfully, Gabe

Happy late birthday, my sweet girl.

You have grown so much within the last year. Your personality development just continuously amazes me; who you are turning into is such a beautiful, strong, and intelligent person. You are something in your league, your own story, your own abilities. You are talking so much it’s made me pause. I think we all fail in realizing the ability of our words; I was raised in a time where my word wasn’t meant to be respected as a child, but as a child who should speak as an adult. I didn’t know then what you’ve taught me now, that even children have voices that are bigger than the world. You are learning the power of words already, at just four years old. Communication is a power that we never allow ourselves to view with reverence, but I hope you know that even when you don’t know it will guide you to where you need to be, my love.

Talking can be such a beautiful thing when you speak so intentionally that your heart doesn’t know anything but authenticity. You can do so much with words alone that it’s a wonder anybody would question the power of communication. Enlightenment. Truth. Education. Consideration. Justice. Empathy. Love.  The true seven wonders of this existence. Your heart can hang on forethought alone. You can build the foundation with trust and watch your words tumble into skyscrapers that touch the skies of people’s souls. But it takes an immense amount of courage to find the voice that will become the bricks, to find the syllables that will become concrete, to find movement in your actions to pair with the beauty of what you sing. 

There will be days when words will fail you, whether they be your own or that of another. There will be the wrong words, in which people believe they can define you instead of defend you. Then there will be such a silence that it will be deafening; the inability to say what you will need, and the inability to hear that silence crack. There may come a time when you can simply only trace the imaginary perfection of lips that never formed the words you needed, on parchment paper, over, and over, and over. But just like the words that were never spoken, that paper will never stay whole. It will fall apart like pictures in the sand being taken by the tide. So you will trace them again, to see if maybe this time they will stay; to see maybe if you’ll be loved so courageously that the ocean itself would stop its destruction of the beauty you think is there and instead preserve this moment forever. 

There will be moments in which you will come alive in the silence. It will be like caressing the lines of Zeus’ neck just to hold him by the throat in the end; to watch the lightning strike then withhold his thunder from him. You’ll steal the thunder from the gods to just ensure you never have to hear their plans to strike come full circle. You will be the deafening of the storm, and there you will find comfort. The comfortable silences are the ones that will soothe you after too much war, too much talk, and too much effort. 

My beautiful girl, you are alive in both silence and sound. Your silence is the way stars sparkle without demand; your sound is the way the sun warms this planet without request. Your anger is everything cracking at once, and your love is the thunder after the universe mends itself back together once that lightning is done. You talk from the moment your eyes open, and sometimes for a momma who likes the quiet, it feels like it’s just all too much. But I’d give up every ounce of silence to be able to keep your voice in my head just like this; to continue to hear “I love you” at every different octave you will possess. 

I am ready to hear everything you say because everything you say will be a requirement for my life to be full; the diction you use, the jokes you make, the absolute unhinged moments you’ll get from me… I am ready for it all and hearing you become this person is what I look forward to every day. 

Learning to love & speak intentionally 

For you

Because of you 

With you,

Momma. ❤️

I’m tired in the best and the worst of ways. I am tired, but I am alive. Honestly, Dear Reader has been the repeat of my soul this year, and it’ll be the song that I listen to the most of 2023. So you may as well start it, and listen carefully. Normally, by this time of year, I would have filled my blog with beautiful and hurtful words; however, you can not make art out of literature when there are no words to wrap your heart around. But welcome to the third and last entry of 2022. It has been the most silent time in my head, but at the same time, my mind is bearing witness to the loudest screams it possibly ever held.

The complexity of truth makes it nearly impossible for the nature of the brain to grasp it. It is, and it isn’t everything. It is one thing that is true, but it doesn’t mean that the opposite holds no truth as well. It is not, to be or not to be – it just is and isn’t. While I hold the past as precious, treasured, and blessed, I see that it is dark, traumatic, and cursed. It is precious, but it is dark. It is treasured, but it is traumatic. It is blessed, but it is cursed. Just because one of these things is true does not negate the fact that these other things are true, too. Life is too complicated for identifying in half whites and half blacks when it’s a swarm of colors and a whole within itself. It will never be one thing or another. You will never be one thing or another. It is always both sides of one coin; it is the purest love and the deepest hate.

I have spent a very large portion of my life splitting the truth for the benefit of who was near me at the time. Can you call it a double life when it feels like a million little different ones? Can you pretend the part of you is a whole when it’s hardly even a half? Can you really be able to identify your own needs when you’re so attuned to everyone else’s? Can you find your own boundaries when you see the hidden landmines of every person that even walks near you? I am loud and protective, but I am quiet and confused. I can defend any person you hand me, but it took a long time to realize that I do not give myself justice. I am an incapable lawyer within the courtroom of my own head. Incapable within the courtroom of my own heart. I am skilled in the public; a fighter in the ring when there’s a crowd. Yet when the jury dismisses, and the crowd goes home and there’s no one left to fight, I am confused at what is right about me. I was confused if there was ever someone to fight at all, that wasn’t just myself. I know I am worthy, and I do not chase any type of love. I am overly confident and have never radiated doubt within myself. However, I have let love and peace dicate the respect I’ve received or the lack of respect I’ve accepted.

I grew up in survival mode. There were not many times in which I did not calculate my next move. There were not many moments that I lived in but rather lived through. It was small, typical heart breaks compiled and surrounded by moments I could only count on me to get out; to survive. When theres a thousand little moments, it should be expected to become unbearly heavy. You should expect a person to accumulate so much pressure that they burst. Now, as an adult, I have no perception of what it means to live in the now. I have no concept of relaxation. I have no idea how I am supposed to be treated and I have the hardest time understanding that while I love some people dearly, unconditionally, whole heartedly, tenderly, and tremendously- they did not return it. I’ve failed to understand if unconditional love is even possible outside of a child or an animal.

Unconditional love is not a real thing when it overlaps with the nature of humans; you can not expect unconditional love from adults because you, as an adult, can not provide unconditional love. You want to be respected and loved for yourself. There’s a fine set of boxes you need checked, and it’s not wrong to demand things for your heart. It is not wrong to recalculate the dream of unconditional into seamless, strong, and unbreaking if not bendable. Something that can survive even when it grows, finding what can survive the conditions you put on yourself out of love. Not something you yourself surive, because what is beautiful is worked for. Something that can one day become unconditional because the boundaries are automatically respected.

Half way through this year I had to accept the fact that part of me had not yet come to live, and expected too many unconditions while handing out conditions in the guise of boundaries to keep my heart floating. Expectations and boundaries are not in any form the same thing. Boundaries and concrete walls are far from similar. There was a strong little girl in my head who was beaten down into exhaustion. A little girl who should have had the right to lay her head down and not count on the ways to survive. I was a little girl who grew up very quickly, who set herself in a war from a very young age. To suddenly realize that I was a woman, a mother to an entirely different little girl who could lay her weapon down and rest, was a shell shocking moment. I, at almost twenty-six years old, realized I did not have to be within the war. I didn’t have to please anyone; I didn’t have to do anything but be a good mother. Yet, when I came off that battlefield, I was thrown to the ground again. This time, though, it was the enemy within myself whispering that my sight failed to see the whole picture. Sometimes, when you’re in the middle of a war, it’s hard to identify who you’re fighting against. I could find a semblance of a life for myself. I could return “home” after a long, long seventeen years, to the little girl somewhere in my head and allow her everything she needed. I could learn to expect and meet my own needs, despite the fact there was an entire life that I was not privy to despite it being my own.

This year, I’ve come to realize that I’m not particularly religious, but I am a believer. I believe in a God that knows love and strength, despite the fact that I’ve been setting my own moral codes to get me through the most strenuous moments; the relapses, the triggers, the part where the little girl cries. I believe in a God who wanted to throw me every single punch; I believe in a God who wanted to watch me drip blood down my chest from my face to make sure I knew where the border of that true picture lay. I believed in a God who forged steel in the fire, who brought the Phoenix out of the ashes or whatever inspirational and lame book you’ve read this year. A God who allowed life to grab me by the throat, put me on the ground, and whisper fight back. So I did.

Every metaphorical punch directly to my face and gut did not make me stronger. I did not become stronger finding the news one of my best friends died. I did not become stronger for watching my mother lay in a hospital room alone. I did not become stronger for losing my patience. I did not become stronger during covid; during the pointless fights, the doctors appointments, during every moment that was designed to break me down. I got through it because I always do; I’m just exhausted. It made me tired. I survived it, but I swore somewhere near the end that it would not harden me. It would not cage my love. It would not break my spirit. I swore I’d rest. So I did. I took months and months to make decisions on which bridges to mend. I apologized, and I accepted the ones that didn’t confuse me. I acknowledged the fact that there were some hearts I did not want to ever not know. I wanted to be soft. I want to be soft. I will be.


I deserve a life so beautiful that even the gods above and the devil below weep at magnificence of what it is: softness; safety; security; happiness. I shouldn’t have to brutalized my handshake in order to gain respect. My soft curves should not demean the work I’m capable of. The way I sexualize my own body doesn’t lessen the ability of my mind. I am smart, I am savvy, and I am capable. I was a shark but now I am an elephant. I was rhino but now I am a wolf. I am capable of leading but more importantly I am capable of being soft. I am capable of emotions. I am capable because I am more than JUST strength. I am capable of being empathic, sympathic, caring, loving, and comfortable. And it all deserves to be respected. That is a type of strength when all you’ve ever known is hard lines and heavy weights. Allowing beauty where you’ve shut yourself off is something far too wonderful to miss. Allowing yourself a full life is no mistake. Allowing strength to become soft is a blessing. Allowing yourself the knowledge that they are not opposites is soul altering.

So I am offically resigning off of whatever fucking trip they said strength and only that, was most important. This is it; the year where I learn to remain consistently soft.

Forgiving more than you’ll ever know
Faultfully allowing the vallies to raise mountains,
Gabe.

Beautiful people,

This isn’t a long stretched out poetic wonder. It’s just a raw reflection of where my soul has been. Take the sangria out, put the oranges in it, put on Ariana Grandes cover of Vienna. Well, it doesn’t have to be the cover if you’re not into that. Be patient. Be wonderful. Be loving.

It’s been a year of my chest aching. A year of my heart tearing itself apart over a choice I never had in the first place. A year of wondering if there would be a moment where the tears would run out, and embracing the mounting numbness when they did. A year of facing myself and finding those triggers that hurt me more than anything.

I said there were bridges without bombs last year, without realizing there would be bombs on the other side. Maybe they weren’t intentionally placed, maybe they weren’t even intentionally set off. Maybe it’s just what life already had in store for me, and I was just making my way through The Plan. But those bombs exploded anyway and the blast was just as unforgiving as when it is detonated from a bridge; the expected and the unexpected. Maybe it wasnt even a bomb at all. Maybe I was just standing on yet another faultline, so focused on worthy fingers trailing down my worthy spine, that I did not recognize the earthquake I called for. A ground shifting type of pain that became synonymous with a love I didn’t realize was so existent. So authentic that it became a physical part of what I am that I couldn’t see it until those lines began to move. Maybe not a love in particular but the love being at ease.

I fell into the depth of the river right when I thought I’d be able to breathe, and I let my lungs fill up with the water. Yet, just like I said last year, they only filled because of me and for that I am grateful. I do not know if the English language possesses a word that can describe the insurmountable rightness of my actions paired with unwillingness to know what has been said. Can you simultaneously love what has been written in stone but want that stone to shatter? Can you regret the prayer that allowed the stone to shatter anyway? Is there something that screams there have been no regrets, but the pain was unwelcomed despite how much it was needed?

I stayed there for a long time; situated at the bottom of the river while lichen caught on my fingers, and hair. And maybe it was a beautiful scene to some of you, in your light blue sundresses and skin toned tuxes; with the little umbrellas to protect you from the sun in your slender fingers. Maybe while you settled into your new loves and lives, you saw lilly pads, and happy frogs; flowers blooming so vibrantly the air itself was sweet. I saw nothing but departure through the cracks of algae and moss.

You see there had been a time where I dove deep into the rivers for the people I loved. I didn’t mind looking past the pretty pictures. I didn’t mind looking past what was beautiful and living for me, to see what needed to be witnessed for you. And while I wasn’t looking to save many of you, to just love you, I sat there all the same to help you back up with a push or with a hand. I was there to help you. I was there to watch many of you walk away. I’m not mad about it, but it’s difficult to forget the moments where I reached out with every drop of vulnerability to see it dismissed so blatantly. It’s far too easy to be bitter about the fact that the only expectation I’ve placed on every heart I’ve loved is the truth, and not a soul has bothered to give it to me. From platonic relationships to romantic ones, it’s few and far in between that someone has built that trust without ever shattering it. But how could I be mad about it, honestly?

There were people in that river with me, and there were people sitting on the bank waiting for me. Thank God for all of them. The push up, and the hands down. Time after time I would break free from the current for just a moment. A current of grief. The entire back end of 2021 was grief: Anticipatory. Living. Dead. And every time I popped up, I could see a tall, blacker than the night monster of hopelessness crawling towards me through that water. A monster with three bends in its arms, shears for fingers, a jawless, soulless thing pulling me back under. And there were those who kept up with keeping up; gentle reminders of what love looks like.

The thing is that typically with people who have broken pasts and scars turned to personalities, there are conditions with love. It is easier to say unconditional love is real than it is to practice it. It’s even easier to just say what your conditions are. It is easier to announce your intentions than attempt to cover them up. We all have soft and hard boundaries. We all have deal breakers. I thought I’d find a place where unconditional love for someone other than who you make or who you come from could be a tangible thing. I may not have found that exactly, but I found out who made me a part of their days. Who openly expressed the observation of when I was missing. Who sat on a river bank, rope in hand, everyday waiting to see if they could pull me up a little when I no longer had the strength. Who listened to me sob when I saw those blue dresses, and skin colored tuxes turn away. I saw the people in the river with me, who let go of the breaths weighing them down, who freed themselves in whatever way they could even while they pushed me up. Unconditional love may be hard to do in practice but those who wake up and make a collective decision to love you above those difficult times are so, so honored. There is not a day that will go by in the next ten years that I do not thank the universe for supplying me with people who love me. I’ve come to realize it is not unconditional love I seek, but a consistent love. A love that fights for me, even in the smallest gestures. A streak on snapchat. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich (mixed.) A song (send these to me by the way.) A picture of the sunset. An analytical conversation to make you cry. Something that I can hear across the void and through the water even when it is whispered.

I’ve come out of that river since starting this blog. I started it months ago, if I’m being honest with you all and myself. Since first trying to lay my thoughts and pain down into beautifully placed words I have lost so many people. Some for good, some for the worst in irrevocable ways. I miss them, some I miss more. I’ve avoided funerals. I’ve sat in hospitals. I’ve been exhausted in 2022, to my very bones. Yet that exhaustion has allowed me to breathe. It allowed me to break through. I accept as graciously as I can the defeat of this battle between character development and character. I accept that whatever story those around me have made, that twines with mine, is not what I expected but what is needed.

The last two weeks I have taken in deeper breaths. I almost lost my mom, and I lost a dear friend. I decided that for them, I could pull myself together. I could set boundaries that allowed me to be living, instead of sinking.

My shoulders are lighter. The sun is shining. The sky is purple and pink and orange and blue; the colors of the universe melting into magnificence. The sangria, that you’re drinking, is sweeter. The jokes are funnier. The peace is at a magnitude for we cannot change what is, and we can only accept what we can accept. There is a beauty in which the world is turning lately. There are new chapters lying ahead, waiting for me to embrace them. I am still caught between the universe will provide, and the people who want to have something will fight for it. Yet I know, they are not mutually exclusive. Listen to your heart then listen to the wind. The “right now” is something I would not trade. The last years are something I will never give away or diminish. I have a toddler that laughs. I have someone who cares. I have a mother who is alive. I have a friend who has turned into an angel whispering in my ear “you’re way too bad to stay this depressed, brat. Stop crying. Go for a run.” (I love you forever, Frankie.) I know that one day, everything will be clear. Clarity is knowing that life is now, not later. Clarity is understanding that time isn’t real but it can’t be wasted.

There are so many wonderful things in this world that I look forward to everyday. I finally have anticipatory joy, and I hope it is matched by the ones who love me and loved me through my hardest years. I hope you have someone who does the same for you. Maybe, it’s both of us, for each other. This is the beauty that was designed for the hearts that have been tired too long, and it is ours, my loves.

I know that one day this chapter that is coming to a close will serve me well. I know one day the intentions will be announced and the consistency may become unconditional, just like the faults in this earth. Another earthquake that made a move, and here is to the mountains that will come with it. Here is to a personal view that will one day be mine. Here is to the view that will be yours. And here is to the one that we will share. Above and beautiful.

Forever Faultfully,
Gabe

Hello my lovelies,

It’s been a long time. Where have you been? Where are you going? What do you feel? I’ve missed you, have you missed me?

I’ve been going through it lately. This summer I was deeply depressed, a balancing act that people noticed but didn’t push. I’ve reached a point where I’m happy but I’m acutely aware, I need breaks; a little freedom to do what I need.

I took last weekend off; a staycation, really. I thought that my heart would be in the throes. An approximate anniversary of a new, and old, pain. This time last year I stood under a street lamp and forgot how to breathe. I remembered everything I forgot, and then I had to let it go again.

I thought the weekend would be painful, a reminder to remember that we have to forget eventually. A reminder that healing has to be appropriate and approved. We as society function because everything we do has to be appropriate, has to be approved. But we haven’t been functioning for a long time, have we? We’ve traded the word survival for functioning, when surviving is primal. We’ve traded healing for appropriate, when healing is messy and messy is anything but appropriate. We’ve traded living for approval, because the society we sit on hinders itself on righteousness. We’ve traded happiness for being correct, because being correct helps you make the push through.


It’s all so… shallow, isn’t it? We withhold ourselves from the best versions of us because most of the time our best version doesn’t mesh with what our idea of who our best selves are. And who is stopping you but yourself? We all do things behind closed doors that allow us to sprinkle beauty into the cracks of our pain that we are ashamed to mention out loud. We all heal; yet there is almost always someone judging the cracks, the beauty, and the healing as if they don’t have their own doors.

Does it matter how each of us heal ourselves, if we are living in the end? There is a place that is something beyond the embarrassment, beyond the indifference, above the complaceny that we ourselves established in our hearts in order to blend. In order to function. When we need to survive we push the instinct down; when we need to push our boundaries to live, we box them up. We box them for what is acceptable and we tilt our noses to those who find a breath, just a singular breath, to get them through.

We allow it in our lives; the lack of living. We judge it in others; the need to survive. We accept indifference. We adore our own complacency in society. It is complacency and indifference that will ruin your life; make it into something less than. Something that whatever gods rose above you when you were born, did not intend. Something great, that you stopped fighting for, when you chose comfort above living. Above loving. When you took the time out to reprimand the person brave enough to find survival and turn it into living when all you cared about was functioning. When you took the time out to judge a person finding themselves through your secret fantasies because society told you no. As if you weren’t society yourself. As if you couldn’t push yourself to do what your heart thinks about when you’re all alone at night.

And it’s because of YOUR fears, and YOUR expectations of your comfort ending, that you will never see what you could be. We become so engrossed with the pain of a chapter ending, and the new ones starting, that you forget about coming full circle with your own growth. The world is round, my loves, just because something is over for now doesn’t mean it’s over forever. There may come a point where you cross your very own path and you must accept that. You are not linear. Say it. You are not linear. Your fears of not seeing the path, of closing the chapter, of moving on, drags you to a place where you will not appreciate the travels, the book, and the becoming. You will not see that you are a zigzag. You are divergent. You are a work of art; a magnitude of lines that emphasizes the beauty of who you are, of who you will be, and the mark you leave on this world. You are not a straight line with a destination. Appreciate the fact you will find pieces of your new self and your old self along the way. Accept the world is round and books aren’t published until there is an end. You must let it go to become.

But you will never become, and you never will be free, if you allow yourself to look the picture of what you’re expected to be instead of who you are. You will never heal, if you only attempt to heal in the ways other people tell you to. You can do everything in THEIR right ways and they will still tilt their noses. So do everything in YOUR right ways. Survive until you live. And live until  you are happy. Go, find a balance between killing yourself for a society who never cared and finding safety in your freedom of societal expectations.

Tell people how you feel. Be serious and be a goofball. Apply for the job. Go jump off a cliff (with a safety net.) Find the hobby. Figure out your go to drink. Explore your sexual desires and feel no shame. Peak behind the dark corners of your mind. Seak what sparks your soul into a forrest fire and watch it burn. Because you are always one choice away from seeing how high, and how mighty that fire inside of you is. One choice away from seeing how bright you may burn for those around you; for you. You are always one step away from seeing what you were meant to be, if you could be.

There are people in your life who will force you into looking into the dead center of a forrest fire you’ve been ignoring. Those same people who will bring you to your knees, and force your face towards the fire will either let it consume you and walk away, or they will bear their share of the heat and let the flames take them too. If they choose to let it consume you alone, let it burn. Let yourself find who you are. If they choose to stay, let it burn. Let yourself find who you are. As for me, I’ll be waiting for you with open arms in a reprieve from the heat in the center of who you are. I’ll love you for what you are until you can find what you are made of so your love can pour into that same fire. Into the healing.

There is healing in pain. There is healing in growth. There is healing behind the rules that we simply made up to function so we didn’t have to live. There are people who are desperately trying to survive and become who they need to be, while you allow them and yourself to become a casuality of your indifference and your complacency. You will never know their passion, nor your own, if you continously try to snuff out the fire of who we are individually for the sake of what we are as group. You will never experience the mountains nor the valleys if you try to keep the earth from shifting.

Open your eyes beyond the idea of a commotions being wrong when all they’ve ever done is improve. Remove the blinders of what they say is right and what you feel is right. Find what you were meant to forget until you can remember without feeling the pain. Find the pieces of yourself if there nothing to hold you back.

Be brave, my kings and my queens. Embrace the fire and be courageous with who you choose to be; you only do it once.

Forever in the fire and forever faultfully,
Gabe

Happy birthday, sweet soulmate

This year I wanted to do more than a post about our shared loved of Gatsby, disassociation traveling, and morbidly dry humor. I just wanted to give a bit more, because the last year you have given me more. So grab your “awh, bud” emotional avoidance response.

I dont think anyone is quite as lucky as me to have you in their life. But you know, I’m selfish. Haha. I mean, it’s true, there are other people who have nothing but God and Fate to thank for your love. I am the jealous boyfriend of bestfriends though, and your are the picture of patience when it comes to me. So you already know when I say I don’t think those other people realize how special you are, that I’m just being territorial.

I love you for who you; every spite filled crevice and crack in your soul, every sassy slip of your tongue, every happy moment you grace us with, for the mother you are, and every drop of unconditional love you offer me. I just want you to know that is an honor to be loved by someone like you, and those who don’t recognize that don’t deserve it. In fact, you’ve helped me recognize it in other people, despite my strongest efforts to avoid it, (hardy har to my sympathetic heart that you see right through.) Your heart is and always will be far too beautiful for the wreckage that you’ve been through and the dark parts of this world.

You never see that though; sometimes I think the pretty little mask you wear for the world so you can be by yourself, blinds you from what you really are. You are an intelligent, strong willed, and wonderful soul. You deserve more than just time put into you, but initiative and respect. You deserve to give you all of those things.

You have poured out your heart continuously to me, even when I didn’t deserve it. You have made sure that you talk me down from the quarter life crisis I faced this year time and time again. You love my baby just like I love yours, with every beat and fiber of my heart. Even though they’re both more than seven handfuls on their own.

I dont if I, or anyone else, could say they deserve all that you give, but im so happy you continue to give it. It breaks my heart to know that some people will never know what it’s like to have someone in their corner through every mistake, every up, and every down. Nobody can say they have a best friend like mine, except maybe you, because ultimately you’re stuck with me for a rider. Figuratively and literally, because honestly you are the better driver.

I miss you constantly and see you everywhere. I see you in the color purple. I see you in sea turtles. I see you everytime someone does a finger gun. I see you I every toddler with their hands folded across their lap. I see you in Chevy Malibus and Rav 4s. I see you in every me(mom,) and pe(pop) (you’re gonna make a baller grandma one day, don’t you know.) I hear you in every absurd Nicki Minage rap because “whoa, okay bar bekah.”

You defend those who need the defense so effortlessly and I hope one day you can take that passion and fight for every inch if every single thing you deserve in this world. I hope you don’t allow your indifference and the overwhelming emotions swirl your life into happenstance and complacency. I hope you own every thing that lights the fires in your heart and let it consume your life until it is nothing but everything you dreamed it. If anyone has the determination, and my support, it’s you.

Here’s to this 25th year and the next 25 because I’ll be with you for every single one.

I love you to the moon, the end of the earth, and for every star in the sky

Gabe 💜

P.S. life advice: they don’t love you if they don’t look at you the way Bekah looks at tortoises.

Hello My Fragile Hearts,

I’ve always had a love for tragedy. I’ve always felt it was realistic to embrace the tragedies in literature and art over the happy endings that seem so rare. So it’s not going to be a surprise when I tell you to go grab Romeo and Juliet. I’ve been simultaneously in love and disgusted with this particular part of Shakespeare. Who would die for new love? Ick, to be honest, it is so very ick. But I do adore an ending that rips you apart either way. So here’s where I say, go turn on the music: supermarket flowers (Ed Sheehan,) Only You (Selena Gomez,) or Ivy (Taylor Swift) should really do the trick. And even deeper, go buy The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo, and feel every piece of pain in one of my favorite books.

Juilet asked a lot though didn’t she? I know there isn’t much to a name (according to her sorta) but I wonder if everytime she could hear it from here on out, how much pain it would it bring? Will it dwindle into something less than what it is, just a faded scar among many. Or will it remain as firey as the origin it came from? Which is worse, for something so important to fade off into a nothingness that barely holds you or for something so temporary to wreck havoc in the same way grief does?

Grieving is so, so powerful. It is one of the strongest things in this world, giving Love a run for its money. If love and hate are the same side of a coin, the other side is grief and growing. The way grief can be felt for ANYTHING is staggering, mind blowing, out of kilter, devastating. Painful…

Grief is not bound by death, but empowered by life. It is never grief for the dead, but it is always grieving for the living. It’s hard when people go away, in any fashion, but maybe it’s harder being the one left. And I’m sure it’s hard for some people, in some situations, to be the one doing the leaving.

We grieve for so many things, day in and day out. We grieve for the lost love. The lost opportunities. The ones who have died. The lost comfort. The losses of living; because there is no living without losses. There is no growing, without giving.

I think its a hard concept some days, to allow the grief we have to encompass our heart. To mourn for those who still breathe. To mourn for the heart in our chests still beating. To remember to live and love unapologetically, when you have let so much go. It’s hard to remain brave in the face of a personal tragedy, with self inflicted wounds that bind us to the people we are meant to become.

The way grief impacts each and everyone of us for so many different things never ceases to amaze me in the way terrifying things capture our attention. In the way that there is no fight or flight, but a freeze. The way the world slows down, the way things blur; even when you know it’s coming, grief never softens its blow. There is no mercy for those who love what is taken. There is nothing beyond the silence of tears rolling off your face; when everything you said in present tense suddenly turns to the past tense. Echos of what was, what could have been; over in your diction before you can acknowledge it in your heart.

I feel like there’s a little grief in every day for different things. I feel like sometimes that grief will dress up like slain demons to remind you that maybe, just maybe, some things never die. Some demons are never to be slain until we can allow part of ourselves to make the plunge of death with said battle. A part of us to grieve for; a gift to the grief itself.

Personal growth occasionally involves grieving the part you give. It’s the acknowledgement that there parts of you that will die, and accepting that there parts of you who may never be, at no fault to your own. Or maybe it will be a fault of your own; fear is a cruel thing to being the whole of who you dream of. (Forever my ode to the debate of if we truly the masters of our fate.)

There may be times you can see something so clearly, feel it so wholly, that there is no vision beyond that. Until there has to be one, until the one you eased your soul into is ruthlessly snatched away by whatever may have the claws to take it. To rip it away; leaving torn muscles and crushed bones where there used to be peace. A love that turns into agony, and eventually an agony that bleeds into solace.

Thats just the thing about grief isn’t it, a comfort will always come whether it’s the ones we cry for or the ones that are brutally handed to us. Sometimes it’s the comfort we, ourselves, have to haul out of us. A comfort based on survival. A comfort of sliding between each stage of the grief until there is no energy to do anything but accept what we’ve given; to endure what we’ve lost.

Nevertheless, we prevail. We adapt, we survive, and eventually maybe in the acceptance of what will never be, may we live. There will be moments where you are the brave one, who offers. There will be moments where you have to wait for others to be brave, to be the one who gives faith and disappointment. And in that giving there may be grief.

In that grief you may realize that you’ve walked into storms for those you love, voluntarily and fearlessly, to be left in your own storm. And in that storm, you will understand why grief is the undertow of love. It is not hate that destroys the bridge between two hearts so connected, rather than giving that was never vocalized nor acknowledged. The indifference to the pain inflicted is the unknown bomb on the bridge; a conversation that may never be had. But you will live with or without that silence.

To come out better is the fight we all take on. To overcome the pain, of the giving and lean into the growing. There may be a time where it can be remembered without the gnawing grief, simultaneously a hungry wolf and loving caress down your spine. There may be a time where there is no regrets but fondness. There may be a time where your bravery saves those parts of you; there may be time where your bravery saves you from the grief. However there will always be a time where you yourself will see the light, breathe in the air, and rise to the new level it brought you too. Maybe the gift of grieving, is the grief itself. The grief for who you were, so you can become the you that you will be.

Once we acknowledge what is gone, we can find every inch of what could be, if in the end we choose to not master our fate but let it come to us. There is no finite possibilities in this world, when there is infinite sources of emotions that will us to become.

A shared grief in private solitude on the faults,

Gabe

And ps. I love you forever.

Hello, beautiful growing souls,

I dont have a song for you today, so listen to what your heart sings to you best. Listen to the way you love people when it’s hard & hold on tight to it. You’ll need it.

I went through a rough patch recently; I’m self aware enough to know every single thing that led up to said rough patch. Yet, just because you can see a downfall coming, doesn’t mean you always steer away from it. Sometimes it’s good, because we grow. Sometimes it’s unnecessary, because not everything happens for some grand scheme, God driven, fate derived plan. Most of the time, we don’t know which it is when we choose to avoid it or to fall into it. And sometimes, we choose the self inflicted wounds.

Thats all aside the point. I’m relatively consistent in making jokes while I’m in pain, and being transparent while I grow. The transparency of not knowing if it was for a reason to become better, or just the foundational stupidity we all possess. The transparency is always after the pain, and it normally has people flooding my inboxes. I am so, so grateful for every single person who has reached out to me over the last few weeks. I am so honored to be loved and respected by so many people. But this isn’t a long post about the check-ins, it’s a post about the act of affirmation that we are so quick to offer those around us, but hardly ourselves. Even when we aren’t getting it from those we want it from.

If you ask me what I thought about myself, it probably wouldn’t match my actions; some people think the way I view myself is the way I treat myself, and thats not entirely true. The way I view myself is breath-taking to someone who isn’t used to it. I have been instilled over and over again that I am beautiful, a winner, a balanced woman in strength and vulnerability. But my darlings, just because I believe it whole heartedly, does not mean I do not allow the outside world to play its part. It does not mean I don’t allow me to hold myself back sometimes. It doesn’t mean that the dark things said to me weren’t instilled as well, because they were. But what is that we instill into ourselves during the days that crack at everything? Where everything crushes in a little harder?

Occasionally, in my previous posts, you have me seen work through many emotions: love, trust, uncertainty, and most recently depression. Each part of those emotions come from something on the outside and from something on the inside. We could all do better, with what’s coming from the inside.

My biggest example is my maturity. We all know immediately it is an asset, but I can’t help but view it as a down fall during the rare events. I allow my extended, far off boundaries to become pushed, because growing up young ensured I was able to bear the most. I allow my maturity, and my empathic nature for others (a constant attempt for deep understanding for the person or event,) to shadow what I need. As the carer, I rarely remember to care for myself. As the person who loves to nurture, I forget to nurture myself.  I choose to bear the pain because I can’t bear to watch it in others. I shadow myself, and how often I justify someone else before respecting my feelings is too hard to witness.

I think we all shadow ourselves. I think the people who were pushed to take care of themselves young have this deep rooted desire to carry the weight on their shoulders. Weights that aren’t supposed to be theirs. Weights that eventually crush us, no matter how strong we are. Always trying to out run the mistakes of our parents that impacted us so profoundly, only to loop back to try to ease the other ones out of it. To make the world better by putting ourselves second, in the event that someone else doesn’t have to know that type of weight we hold. On a chance that those of us who resemble our past, won’t be to know what it’s like to put themselves last.

Lately, I’ve realized that with those deepest efforts I can still reflect “betterness,” instead of bitterness into my life. I am still growing so persistently; the definition of prevailing in places that tell me to accept what is, instead of dreaming of what could be. My entire life I have been so determined to find a better me, that I always focused on my next step. But for now, I have no idea what the future holds; for now I am focusing on me in order to get to the next step (not the other way around.)

Put what you need first occasionally. Speak into your soul as much as you speak into others. There is no selfishness in taking care of yourself when you need to be taken care of. There is no selfishness in voicing your needs, your wants, and desires to those who wish to help you hold the weight. It is just so, so, so important that you VOICE anything.

Despite what you watched, or learned, while you grew; you are worthy of communication. You are capable of true discussions that ease your heart, that ease your mind, that ease your discomforts; that feed your soul. You are honorable enough to express it to those around you that now may not be the time for communication, but it will come when your soul has rested. You are worthy of closure. You have the right to express how you feel to those around you, respectfully.

Despite what the hurting people have said to you, you are more than your mistakes. You are more than your disfunction. You are more than your mess. If your mess is emotions, and actions, then openly accept it. There is no bravery in idly watching your life slip by. Let your mess propel you into your destiny.

Despite what you believe, you are smart. You are beautiful. You are capable of everything you put your mind to; and when it feels like the walls are too much to break down, tell the walls you are too much to be stopped. Step around them, because while the walls may be comfortable, there is a growth beyond them.

It is beautiful to tell yourself “I am still growing. I am yet who I will become. I am a fraction of what I will be.” Instill your confidence that where you are going is where you will be meant to be. Stop voicing your unsaid fears to yourself, when your fears should be the one bowing to you.

Eventually, you will find the place that suites your soul so well that you can no longer remember what it was like to be oppressed into something less than what you are.

Pour. Into. Yourself.

Speak the words you shout to those you love, directly into your heart because you are worth your gentleness. You are worth self confidence. You are beyond what you can imagine, each and every day. You are outstanding.

Despite what they say, despite what you think; your whole is more than your parts. The people who are strong enough to love you, won’t allow those parts to overshadow you.

Embrace all of you; each flame, each earthquake, each star, each hurricane, each moment. Love yourself the way the earth loved the sky before it knew anything else; wild and for what it was. Do not let shadows come from within, when there is only sun and starlight. Love yourself the way you did before you knew who they wanted you to be. Before you knew anything but what you desired. Before you knew anything but comfort and care.

Affirm it.
Be it.
Believe in it.

Believe in you, the way I do,

More than whatever we expected but still faultfully,
Gabe ❤