Well, hello there, 2023. 

The start of a new year always makes me reflective – I know, you never would have guessed. I spend days beforehand mulling over all that the past twelve months have held, wondering what the next twelve have in store, and filling up arguably too many pages in my journal. 

When Saturday rolled around and we found ourselves in the final hours of 2022, I knew there was only one thing to do that would feel like the proper sendoff for a year that I couldn’t quite define. 

And so, I went on a walk. 

I think that I spent more time walking in 2022 than I have in past years combined. I’d never really had the time or space to make it a regular part of my routine before, but suddenly it was my sanity point. Last January marked quite possibly the worst my anxiety had ever been, and walking became a catharsis I didn’t know I needed. I’d pray, or talk to friends, or walk over to a nearby lake to read for a little while. It was such a point of healing for me. 

It only felt fitting to end the year in the way that had most grounded me. The sky was a brilliant blue, the sun warm on my face despite the crisp air. I set out, my phone silenced, to say goodbye to one of the weirdest years of my life in the best way I knew how. 

It had rained earlier in the day, and the world felt fresh, new. Like it was preparing for midnight’s strike right along with me. 

I bumped into my mom and sister at the halfway point of the walk, and we stopped to talk for a minute. “Remember when we went on a walk last year a few days before New Year’s and the sky was so pink?” I asked my mom. “I wish that it was like that again today.” There were streaks of gold along the horizon, but it didn’t look to be a sunset night – which was fine. The blue had been magical enough on its own.

 

We parted ways, and they kept walking while I hung back by the water for a little while. It was getting colder, but I couldn’t bring myself to mind. A piece of me just didn’t want to leave, as if staying by the lakeside would keep me in 2022, as if I could stave off the new year by lingering in the healing the old one had brought. 

Finally, I set off again through the old wooded path back home. It’s winding and steep, and always feels a little bit like stepping into another world.

When I emerged from the trees and looked up, the sky was streaked with pink. 

I actually froze in my tracks. No way.

But there it was – not identical to last year’s, but beautiful all on its own, feathery and light and painted like brushstrokes between the clouds.

I stood at the trailhead, my eyes locked on the sky, wishing that my phone could capture the sight as beautifully as it truly was. Deciding that maybe I didn’t mind it being just for me. 

Because that really was how it felt – like it had been put there just for me. 

As I’ve been taking the time to look back over all that 2022 held, I keep coming back to a single word over and over again – grace. In so many ways, 2022 was my grace year. It was a year I stepped into completely blind and more than a little terrified, and here at its end, I can’t help but marvel at all of the ways grace was laced into my story. The things I never expected, the people I got to have by my side, the healing I didn’t know could come. Grace upon grace upon grace, a God more gracious than I could fathom. 

And after this year of absolutely unwarranted grace, a moment with Jesus and a freshly painted sky felt like the sweetest conclusion to it all. 

I don’t know what 2023 will hold. But I know the One who sustains me, and I know that I’ll be carried through. 

That’s enough. 

As we step into the new year, I want to leave you with these words by Neil Gaiman – a wish for your year. I hope it’s a beautiful one, friends. 

“I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in this world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.”

waiting joyfully

It’s six pm, and the world is dark.

It’s only a few days after Daylight Savings as I’m writing this, a blanket wrapped around me as I sit at my desk, unprepared for the chill the evening would bring. I’m still not used to how quickly the light dissipates now, how I blink and it’s slipped away for the day.

I dread this time of year nearly as soon as the first day of summer hits—as soon as I know that the light will begin fading. It will be June, and I’ll be watching the sunset from the hood of my car at eight pm and I’ll be thinking, I never want to lose this.

I always do eventually; that’s the nature of time. Still, it always catches me off guard, wishing for the light to come back.

In years past, the arrival of November has meant the near-implosion of my world, a season of intense insanity. This year is different, my life more still in nearly every way, and I’ve found myself thinking about how to slip into the season with grace instead of barreling through as I normally have to.

We live in a culture that likes to move at warp speed. We wear busyness as a badge of honor, exhaustion the mark of a life of worth. And yet, in many ways, the change of season acts as a direct contradiction to those tendencies. Slow down, it says. It’s not light out anymore. Your work is done for the day.

In Danish culture, the concept of hygge describes a lifestyle based in coziness and comfort. It centers around warmth, rest, and gratitude, and is a cherished part of life for the Danes. It’s not fancy or elaborate, but it’s about lingering in simple joys and finding contentment in the slow moments of the everyday—and allowing space for that slowness.

As we step into the darker days of late autumn and face the fast-approaching winter, it’s the perfect time to embrace a bit more of the hygge lifestyle. To slow down. To carve out space for slow evenings with warm food and good books. To acknowledge that there’s value in taking time to breathe and to rest with the sun.

Hygge, some people say, is one of the greatest tools to counteracting the heaviness that comes with the winter darkness. It’s not a miracle cure—therapy and medication are still necessary lifelines that can’t be replaced overnight. But it’s been found to greatly alleviate the sadness and anxiety that can come with the winter months.

It’s about powering down and plugging into the life in front of you—and embracing the ways in which that life can become a little softer and a little kinder.

For me this fall, that’s looked like powering down from work as early in the evening as I can, and leaving my laptop on my desk, out of reach—not a novel concept, but a definite jump from the girl who’s spent most of her life bringing her laptop to bed with her into the wee hours of the morning. It’s looked like turning the twinkle lights on more often, and knitting and doing macrame while watching a comfort show with my sisters.

It's meant looking at the life I’m currently living, and finding ways to build new routines into it that are steadier and better. It’s been years since I’ve had any sort of regular nighttime routine, but I’ve been making a point to curl up with a blanket before I go to bed and take the time to go through my planner for the next day, to journal, and to read a few chapters of a novel. Recently, I made a list of all the cozy books I want to take the time to reread over the winter months instead of only trying to barrel through my ever-growing TBR. I’m going to start by jumping into Pride and Prejudice—it really does feel like coming home.

There’s an art to it, really, the act of slowing down. It takes a level of intention and mindfulness that we don’t always gravitate towards. But the rewards are so, so rich.

It reminds me of the words of one of my favorite creatives, Jenna O’Brien, who owns the cutest loose leaf tea business. She celebrated her business’s one year anniversary back in September, and took the time in her newsletter to share how tea had affected her life over the past few years. “Tea reminds me to slow down,” she wrote first and foremost. “It always takes 5 minutes to brew – and so it’s created a practice of waiting joyfully.”

Perhaps, at its core, that’s what hygge is really about—knowing that brighter days will come again, and learning how to wait joyfully until they do.

the beautiful impossible

July is rapidly spinning towards its close, and I find myself sitting by the window, letting the sunshine and the sounds of the late summer morning wash over me. It's quiet here, my little neighborhood, the silence only broken by the rumble of a passing delivery truck or the laughter of the little boys next door bursting outside to play for just a few more minutes. The crape myrtle waves in the breeze outside my window, and when I look down at my keyboard, tiny pieces of glitter dance in the light, still clinging on from the best birthday surprise. Today is a breath of quiet after the craziest, most wonderful week, and I'm letting myself sit in it, tired in the way that only comes from days you know you'll remember.

When I graduated at the end of 2021 and stepped into the new year, I found myself overwhelmed with the prospect of how isolating post-grad life would be. It was the coldest, dreariest time of year, I was working remotely, and it felt as though everyone's lives were spinning on but mine. It was stagnant and strange, and I remember thinking that there was no way anything would be shifting anytime soon.

I don't think I would have believed it if someone told me then about the ways the next seven months would go - the old friends who would fall back in rhythm, the new humans I never saw coming, the way paths would cross for people I've known through this space for years and years to finally become in-person friends, too. It's been weird and baffling and I'm so grateful for it, so grateful for how wrong I was.

I remember writing a Tuesday Letter a little over a year ago about community, one of my favorite letters from last summer. I wrote about the fact that we're hardwired for connection, and about the fact that God isn't going to intend something for us without also providing. My doubt is so quick to jump in there, to jump to a mindset of scarcity, and yet over and over again, He reminds me of the lack of truth in that, in ways I never see coming.

This past Sunday, through the wildest chain of events, I got to hug the first three friends I ever made through the blogosphere - friends who've been one of the dearest parts of my world for the past seven years. We met as fifteen-year-old bloggers, throwing words out into the void, until one day someone was on the other side of the screen. I remember the summer we all met so distinctly - lying sprawled across the living room floor, afternoon sun streaming through the blinds as I messaged these girls that lived states and states away, daydreaming of the brunches and sleepovers and adventures we would have one day. We were determined, we said, but we were fifteen, and our worlds didn't extend within each other's grasp.

One day, we agreed. One day, it'll happen.

There were a thousand misses over the years - close calls that didn't quite work, layovers that were just a bit too far out of reach, trips and hopes and one wildly wistful New York internship that just never came to be.

So when Rachel texted us in November that she would be flying to the East Coast in July, I didn't let myself hold on too tightly.

It was eight months away, after all, and all of our lives felt a little up in the air. Who knew what the next eight months would bring? We'd been living in an era of shutdowns and shifted plans, and it was all-too-likely that this could be yet another round.

And then, a few months later, she bought the tickets.

"I have the morning free!" she texted us. "If anyone wants to meet for coffee, I'd love to see you!"

And so I held the date tight in my mind. Didn't circle it on my calendar - it felt too much like tempting fate - but tattooed it behind my eyes, July 24th. Crossing fingers and biting my tongue and sending hesitant texts -

"Want to ride together?"

"What are you wearing?"

"I found three coffee shops - you pick."

Eight months later, July 24th rolled around, and friends - it was perfect.

There's just something about sitting around a table with people who know you - really know you - and who get the pieces of you that can't quite be put into words. But they were there, too. They know.

It was sweet and special and healing, and it felt like a little miracle in the palm of my hand. To sit with people who knew my fifteen-year-old dreams and my eighteen-year-old fears, to be twenty-two and unpack the ways that things have changed - the ways we've changed - together. To see something we spent seven years hoping for come to life, even just for a day.

There's something magical about getting to see a beautiful impossibility become real. To remember that there may be days where it feels like the world is burning, like everything is too heavy to hold, but that there will be other days that remind you that sometimes, good things do take time. That something you hold on to can still become tangible, no matter how afraid you are to believe it.

And I'm just grateful for it all - for the miraculous magic of internet connections and steady friendship and community in all of its forms.

Here's to the impossible - may 22 be filled with its wonder.

and with grace and grace and grace

Last night, a friend asked me how my summer had been going.

"Lots of work," I texted back, "lots of back and forth. Lots of chaos. I feel like I can't even remember it all."

No, I can't seem to remember it all, and if I'm being honest, I struggle to describe it. Life has spun a thousand miles a minute the past few months, and in so many ways it has been so good, so special - though I'd be lying if I said I didn't find myself craving a moment to breathe every now and then. So far, this year has been a bundle of contradictions: slow and hectic, uncertain and stable, heavy and light. I talk to friends and they feel the same way - is this the erratic rhythm of being in your twenties? I find myself certain yet confused, hopeful yet worn, and I wonder how to make sense of it all, how best to move forward when things feel murky and strange.

"Happy, free, confused, and lonely" never felt quite so close.

-----

Today, I turn 22.

It crept up on me this year, courtesy of a July that has flown by in a blur of humidity and friendship and hastily scribbled journal entries. Normally, the time between my sister's birthday at the beginning of the month and my own feels more marked, but this time it's slipped through my fingers like seawater. I don't even think I really processed the fact that it was nearly here, which, knowing me, might have been for the best.

Birthdays have always made me existential. (And I truly do mean always - according to my mom, turning four was absolutely devastating to me.) I find myself spending the weeks leading up obsessing over all I've yet to do and accomplish, panicking over all the upcoming year will hold. This year, though, has been such a whirlwind that I find myself unusually calm as the next trip around the sun approaches. Maybe August will be the month that brings my latest existential crisis, or maybe I'm finally coming a little bit more to terms with the fact that there's no use in anything but open hands.

-----

21 was a year of hurting and healing. It was fast and strange and full of so much that felt new. A year that felt like a demolition of sorts, but also like rebuilding. I have a feeling that 22 will be a little like that, too.

I never pictured that I would be where I am, that life would look like it does, but I'm finding that there's a special sort of hope in that, in the knowledge that I'm not steering the ship. In the fact that I'm here, and my people are here, and that's more than enough. Months and months ago, I remember coming across a post by Written to Speak that read, "let mercy meet the madness", and in so many ways, I feel like that's the defining phrase of the past few years of life - so much madness, but mercy that supersedes it all, that's carried me through in ways I'll never begin to be able to put to the page.

It's 2am now, and I'm penning these words in the dark, listening to the hum of the cicadas outside my window. I'm wrapped in my favorite sweatshirt, a soft gray one with long drawstrings that I bought at goodwill for three dollars because it reminded me of the beach, and my cat is curled up asleep at my feet for the first night in months. The quiet is comforting, and the summer night is warm, and I feel my eyelids beginning to grow heavy.

And maybe I don't know what the year will bring, but I know that it began with doughnuts in the kitchen, because according to Taylor swift, 22 is breakfast at midnight. I know that it began with laughter, and dramatic singing, and texts that leave me marveling at the people God has let me have in my world. It began with my mom and my sisters and the peace that comes from a night after a July thunderstorm.

There is a very big piece of me that is purely terrified of a new year - that's scared to death to keep building this life, to make so many different decisions and jumps. Scared of failing, of making the wrong call, of all that will come that I can't control.

And yet, over and over, when I think of life and 22 and whatever wild adventure this year will be, I think of words that my dear, dear friend, Hannah wrote this past week that have been dancing through my mind ever since:

"Do it afraid, do it badly,
But do it earnestly
And with grace and grace and grace."

Because, as she has often reminded me, doing it afraid is just as brave - maybe braver. And so I carry that with me in my pocket, clinging to grace all the more tightly - do it afraid, do it badly, but do it earnestly. Do the next thing - and the next and the next and the next.

And I think maybe that's how you build a life - how you build an adventure.

So here's to you, 22 - to being uncertain and shaky, but here and sustained despite it all. To being happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time, to hopefully being a little less miserable and a whole lot more magical, and to a year of breakfast at midnight and falling in love with strangers. :-) I don't know what it will hold, but like Taylor says - I know that I'll just keep dancing.

chasing stories

There's never been a time in my life when I wasn't writing or telling stories.

When I was little, that meant every game of imagination that you can think of, from make-believe with my sisters to sitting with my grandfather, going back and forth making up stories together about being detectives or spies or stranded in the middle of nowhere, trying to find a way back home.

Once I got a little older, the stories hit the page, and I was constantly scribbling messy tales into battered notebooks with a reckless abandon. Novels and journal entries, short stories and angsty preteen poetry — trust me, I wrote it all.

It was the summer I turned fourteen that I made the jump into blogging, and suddenly the stories I was weaving together were about me, too. I don't think I fully realized what creative nonfiction writing was until that point, but I fell in love with it, fell in love with a community of people writing about life and God and all of the beauty and hurt that filled the cracks. This summer marks eight years of my corner of the internet, and I genuinely can't fathom my life — any facet of it, really — without growing up in this space, surrounded by these people. So much of me has been made from you, and I'm grateful for every second of it.

And yet, I would be remiss not to admit that sometimes, a part of me wishes I didn't always live life chasing stories.

-----

Being a writer is a beautiful, sacred thing. My life has been shaped by words, and I wouldn't change that for the world. But writing is deeply personal, too - so much of what you write comes from your own life, especially when you write nonfiction. And the thing that often isn't talked about in regards to being a writer is how quickly you can find yourself looking at life as solely a story you can tell.

There's a pull as a writer - especially when you're sharing your work online, because there's an added level of immediacy - to constantly have new stories to share. Life is a content well, and you'd better be bringing stories in by the bucket. If those stories involve a miracle from God, even better - you're succeeding tenfold.

And so, very quickly, you find yourself looking for stories in your breakfast cereal and signs from God in your coffee cup. Your brain sifts through your day as your drive home, sorting out what could be expanded on or twisted into a clever metaphor and what can be tossed aside. It can become all-encompassing before you've even realized it's happening - and by then, it's such a habit that it's second nature.

Worse still, what I realized a few years ago was that I was writing the endings to scenarios before they'd even begun. See, I'm someone who always likes to be two steps ahead - it's just how my brain works. I'm always trying to determine the outcome so that I can prepare should the worst case scenario come to pass. But if I'm not careful, I can quickly reach a point where I'm predicting the end of a situation that I can't possibly predict, and I convince myself that I know exactly what's going to happen, because narratively, it makes sense. It's just another story, and let's be honest - stories can become pretty formulaic. The more time you spend in them, the easier it becomes to see where they're going, and I was convinced that I had hit that point in just about every area.

I would find myself in a hard situation, and I would immediately jump three steps ahead, convinced that I knew exactly what God was going to do and what lesson he wanted me to learn.

"Well," I would think to myself, "x happened, which means y will happen next, and then z will get taken away because God wants to show me _____ and I need to learn _____." And it probably goes without saying, but the lessons I would find myself envisioning were never very pleasant - they all involved some horrible loss or disappointment or grief that I would have to endure for the sake of a lesson.

In a lot of ways, I think it was a defense mechanism. If the worst case scenario came to pass, it would hurt less if I'd already prepared myself, right? If I was never caught off guard, I might not have a very optimistic outlook on life, but at least the ground couldn't be ripped out from under me. It was a very desperate attempt at grasping onto a shred of control, and I threw myself into it with everything I had.

But the thing is, life is more than just a story.

And while I'm not here to claim I'm just a pawn, I'm not the one writing it.

I say all of this because I know that a lot of you who read these letters are writers, too. And I know that, as a writer, it is so incredibly easy to live life chasing a story. It isn't always a bad thing - we need stories. But when we step away from the pen, we need a life that isn't just content. We need a life that's ours.

Life isn't always going to be miracles and gutting loss. It's also laundry and taxes and cleaning the pantry on a Saturday morning. It's long walks that don't lead to epiphanies, and conversations with friends about things the internet will never know, and going to bed early at the end of a long week. And maybe there's irony in the fact that I'm writing about the fact that there are parts of life that aren't meant to see the page, but it's one of the truest things I've come to know. And I wish I could tell my nineteen-year-old self that as she walked through life desperate for a story to fall out of the sky. I wish I could tell my twenty-year-old self that when she was tired and afraid and desperate to never be surprised again.

I wish I had understood sooner that to write is to hold the magical and the mundane together. That life is more than a story dropped into your lap - it's a thousand moments of noticing. That you can't be present to the world around you if all you can think about is the end that you think is being written - that you won't notice anything at all.

Your life is your life - beautiful and terrible and boring and confusing and sweet and strange. And it's going to be filled with some absolutely incredible stories, but sometimes, they're not going to be for the page - they're just going to be for you.

Sometimes, those will be the best of all.

seashells like manna

 

I'm fully aware that this story might sound a little bit crazy. 

But gosh, it's one I won't be forgetting. 

One of my favorite things about relationships is the way in which you build your own language with another person. You create a lexicon of inside jokes and old memories, bandaged broken pieces and patterns that feel like home. It's unique and familiar and something that can't be replicated.

I think it's like that with God, too. 

I know a girl who swears that whenever she needs a little pick-me-up, she finds a ladybug - her and God, that's their thing. For another friend, it's a song. Everyone has a different story, and I love the specificity of it all, the intentionality. 

As for me, Jesus and I like to hang out in the seashells. 

I've always loved looking for shells, the product of growing up with a mother and grandmother who were shell-finding fiends. Most of my earliest memories of the beach involve walking with them, looking for shark's teeth and shells that sparkled in the light. But a few years back, I realized what a breath of fresh air they could be. 

I've never been good at slowing down, which comes as no surprise if you've been reading my words for any amount of time. I always want to keep moving, to keep going, to check as many tasks off the list as I can. But when it comes to finding the best shells, you can't do that. You've got to stay put, to dig in. It's when you take the time to look closer and to really sift through all of the broken pieces that you'll find the most beautiful ones. 

And so, when I was at my most shattered, Jesus plopped me in a bed of shells and let me sit in the sunlight and sift. And along the way, we made our own language out of it. 

Nowadays, my shell-hunting is a little less therapy and a little more of a treasure hunt again, but it's still one of the most calming places to land for me. 

If you ever find yourself wandering the Carolina shore looking for shells, you probably won't be the only one. We frequent a handful of sleepy towns along the coast, and more often than not I find myself falling into conversation with someone else spending their golden hour scanning for shark's teeth and sand dollars. Everyone has something specific they're on the hunt for, and it's fun to compare notes on the best spots for different finds. 

Me? I'm a sucker for anything tiny. I love the big, gorgeous shells as much as anyone, but I get the most excited when I stumble onto something tiny and perfect and beautiful, the kind of shell that you have to work extra-hard to land on. My favorites are the ones that I refer to as baby conchs - technically whelks, since conchs are found in more tropical regions, but that same classic, dramatic look.

They're rarer than most of the shells that I find myself bringing home, and I'm always excited when I stumble onto one. If I find a few over the course of a trip, I'm counting it a success.

A few days into the trip, my family and I went on a long walk down to the end of the island - my favorite spot. The tide was low, and there were shells scattered everywhere. My family has long since learned that, in these situations, the best plan is to abandon me to my own devices, and I ended up spending several hours wandering home by myself, traipsing up and down the beach. I hadn't thought to bring a bag with me, and soon I was cupping handfuls of shells in my palms before remembering that, for once, I did have pockets. I ended up stuffing them full, and along the way, I found several tiny, beautiful baby conchs. I couldn't believe my luck - it was the best kind of afternoon. 

As I finally began to make the trek back to our little blue house, I remember thinking to myself, Wouldn't it just be so sweet to find a baby conch every day while I'm here? Just one? That would be so fun. It wasn't really a prayer, not much more than a passing thought. 

But the next day, as I wandered down the beach in the opposite direction, I stumbled onto another one. 

Huh, I thought to myself. That's crazy. Two days in a row?

Then the next day, I found another. 

I froze. There's no way...

That's right, dear reader. By the time I was packing my bags to head back to my own corner of the south, I had found a baby conch shell every. single. day. 

More often than not, I found two. 

Sometimes they were the result of careful scanning, of sifting through a bed of broken shells until I landed on the perfect one. More often than not, they were just sitting atop the sand as I walked, as if they were waiting just for me. Whether the weather was gorgeous and we were out until the sun went down or rain or wind had us scrambling for cover, one always seemed to cross my path before the day was done. 

It was like a seaside manna, just for me. A daily ritual of intentionality, an inside joke wrapped in salt air. 

Our trip wrapped up on Saturday, and on our way out of town, we decided to check out a spot my mom had read about on Facebook - a hidden gem of a shell spot that we had somehow never known existed, despite visiting the island for years. We're never in a rush to leave the ocean, and what could it hurt to check it out? 

When we finally pulled ourselves away four hours later, I immediately texted a friend: I have seen the promised land.  

It was absolutely spectacular. One of the widest beaches I've ever seen, with huge beds of shells everywhere you turned. People would pass holding giant conchs in hand, or walking slow, keeping their eyes on the surf and all it brought in with each crashing wave. 

As you can imagine, I was lost to the world in a matter of minutes, my drawstring pack slung over my shoulder, a grocery bag in hand for more fragile finds. I think that I could have stayed there forever. 

And in those four hours, I found more baby conchs than I could count. 

I lost track completely. They showed up everywhere I turned. I could barely take two steps before stumbling upon another, crouching back down on the sand a mere foot away from where I'd found one moments before. It was more than a little mind-blowing, and entirely magical. 

Everyone has certain lies that they're prone to falling prey to. It's something that's come up a lot in conversations with friends lately - the way our own minds trick us into believing things that couldn't be further from the truth. One of mine that's popped up more often than I'd care to admit over the past several years has been that I've been forgotten by God. Left behind. And while I'm grounded enough to know logically that I'm being irrational, it's still a feeling that has to be fought all the same. 

So to experience something so sweet, so intentional on a thousand different levels - it's special and meaningful and centering in the best possible way. 

The thing about God that blows me away is that it was one of those things that wouldn't mean much of anything to anyone else. To most people, shells are just...well, shells. They're pretty, and it's fun to stumble onto a unique one, but at the end of the day, they probably won't give them much thought. But for me - that's my language. It's what will catch my attention.

So, for me, it was a reminder - something tangible - that even when it feels like my world is in disarray, I haven't been left by the side of the road. A reminder of goodness, and kindness, and of abundance. And as the week went on, every time I would catch that familiar spiral shape out of the corner of my eye, I had to laugh. Okay, God, I'd think. I get it. I see you.

And so this week, as I unpack and regroup and fall back into routine once more, I'll brush the sand off of my finds and line them up on the edges of my bookshelves where I can see them. I'll bring a little of the ocean into my everyday rhythms - and keep that reminder close.

I don't know what May has held for you so far, my friends, but I hope that if nothing else, you're reminded of just how known and cared for you are by Him - and that you see that intentionality come through every single day, even through something as small as seashells that feel like manna.

the little blue house by the sea

 

The last time I was here, the world was burning. 

At least, that’s how I began the poem that I wrote over the weekend, a tangle of words long coming. I’m still in North Carolina, still letting the salt air fill my lungs and the crash of the waves lull me to sleep at night. I love my hometown, and in many ways I’m wildly attached to it, but if I ever were to move, it would be here – the safest place I know. 

I’ve traipsed up and down the North Carolina coast several times over the course of the past year, but the specific spot where we’ve taken up camp over the past week and a half is a particularly special one. The last time that we were here was eighteen months ago, nearly to the day. For two weeks in the late fall, we ran away to a little blue house by the sea. We were battered and bruised, and we needed a refuge. 

I don’t know that I’ve ever written about those two weeks, not really. Maybe because to write about them would mean writing about 2020 and trying to put words to the way that it wrecked me. 

By the time that late October rolled around with her fiery sunsets and falling leaves, I was a shell of myself. Grief had yanked me inside out, and I was all shaky hands and tired heart. I’d pegged everything – and I truly mean everything – on this escape. It was an unreasonable amount of weight to put on two weeks, but I was desperate. It was the only lifeline I had in sight. 

I cried the night we arrived. It was the last way I expected to begin the trip, but it was one of those moments where the tiniest of disasters triggered a flood of the weight of the world. I just remember the exhaustion of it, the hopelessness. It was nothing new and that was the worst part of all. 

Over the next two weeks, the world burned on, but I felt like – for a moment – I was able to pop out from underneath the smoke. The pandemic raged on, and the election had the country in turmoil, and my heart was no less broken. But at the same time, I was in a bubble – spending time with family and listening to Zoom classes while I slathered on sunscreen and taking long walks in the cold November air. And in the tiniest of ways, I found myself feeling like mending wasn’t entirely impossible. 

We rarely stay at the same properties twice – rentals vary from year to year, and you never know how prices and availability will shift. But somehow I find myself writing this letter from the little blue house once more, curled up in the bedroom at the end of the hall. I have the most vivid memory of writing a Tuesday Letter in this very spot, about seashells and breathing and noticing the good. It’s déjà vu in the truest sense.

Being here again has been weird and wild and wonderful. I love this place, love this house, this part of the island. I would be so content to stay here forever. And at the same time, being back is the strangest feeling, laced with bittersweetness.

I don’t always know how to equate the girl I was then to the girl I am now. I still hold so many of the broken pieces of that November, but the edges aren’t as sharp now. They clink around and cause a ruckus every now and then, but they’ve been sanded down; they don’t make me bleed. They’re sea glass, softened by the beating waves. And I wish that I could tell her that, the girl from eighteen months ago. I wish I could tell her that she wouldn’t bleed forever. I don’t think that she would believe me – I can nearly guarantee she wouldn’t. But maybe a bit of it would stick. Just a bit. 

And over the past nine days of being here, that’s been the thought that I haven’t been able to get out of my head – I’m okay in a way that I didn’t know I could be eighteen months ago. In some ways, that I didn’t know I could be eight months ago, or six months ago. 

It felt impossible until it didn’t, and I think that’s the thing that I keep coming back to, the reason that I’m utterly spilling my guts on this page. For so long, it felt so impossible. And there was no pinpoint moment where the world turned around, nothing that I can hold to the light or put on a pedestal to sing the praises of or capture as a mental photograph. This isn’t your survival guide to getting out of the woods, because if I’m being honest, there was no grand system to it for me. That’s not to say there weren’t certain things that helped – there absolutely were, and maybe I’ll write about them one day. But I’m not your poster girl for finding yourself again through cross country moves or ten-step cleanses. My road was rocky and strange and disorganized. But it wasn't a dead end the way that I thought it would be. 

The thing that encouraged me most was when I sat across from someone who said, "Hey. I was there, too. But I made it out. You will too." 

I can't tell you what your road will look like. But I can sit across the table from you at a coffee shop or sit on your bedroom floor, leaned up against the wall, and tell you that I made it out. That you will, too. And that's the reason I wanted to write these words. Not to fill a page with answers, because lord knows I don't have those. But to climb down next to you in the trench and tell you that I get it. To tell you that you can crawl out, bit by bit. To tell you that it might happen before you even realize you've done it. 

And I think I keep looking for something profound to say about it all, when perhaps the most profound thing is simply this: whether you can see it now or not, there will come a day when you're more okay than you thought you could be. 

I can't wait to celebrate that day with you when it comes. 

joy is not made to be a crumb

I realized several years ago that I was living in fear of plenty. I'd never even heard of having a scarcity mindset until God slapped me across the face with "abundance" as my word for 2019 one early January night, a seemingly out-of-nowhere declaration that would end up defining those twelve months for me in so many ways.  Scarcity and abundance are a weird tug of war to find yourself in the middle of - worrying that you're always going to run out, while simultaneously being afraid that when you finally get "it" - whatever "it" may be in your life - that it will be the last time things are good, as if you've used up your last wild card in Uno and all that's left is getting slapped with Draw 4's for the rest of your days.  You can unpack the two for ages, but at the root, it comes down to fear - of instability, of loss, of hoping for something you can't have. And it's not an easy mindset to untangle yourself from, no matter how often you beat it back. Oftentimes, I've found that it's in the most beautiful moments that it shows up the loudest. Whether it's the result of seasons of loss or simply cynicism, I can't say, but joy always seems to carry a bittersweet flavor with it - the knowledge of an ending, or of anticipated change. Sometimes, I think we can find it easier to leave space there instead - to not allow ourselves to step fully into the joy in an attempt to avoid some of the loss that could come with it.  There's a vulnerability that comes with joy. It requires a bit of release, a little more openness than we're used to or comfortable with. Joy requires us to let go, to uncurl our fingers in order to be able to fully grasp it.  It's beautiful, and it's meaningful, and it doesn't always feel safe.  April is National Poetry Month, and as such, I've been trying to surround myself with even more poetry than usual for the past few weeks. Mary Oliver will always be one of my all-time favorite poets, and over the weekend, I was reminded on more than one occasion of her words: "Joy is not made to be a crumb." She writes:

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Sometimes, allowing yourself to step fully into joy can be the most rebellious decision that you can make. But joy - as Mary Oliver so aptly said - is not made to be a crumb. No, joy is meant to creep into all of the cracks and crevices; not to graze, but to fill.  And when it feels safer to just allow yourself the crumb - when it feels terrifying to allow yourself more than you can pinch between your forefinger and your thumb - I think that's the biggest sign of all that it's time to stop hesitating and jump.  Because maybe she's right - maybe things can't be redeemed, at least not the way that you hoped they would be. But maybe there's still possibility here. And maybe recognizing that possibility is the first step to finding the fistfuls of joy that you've been too afraid to grab hold of.  What would life look like if you weren't afraid of joy, of its plenty? What would change if, when unexpected moments of joy hit...you let them?   What would change in your world? What would change in you?  Joy is a gift, friends. A wonderful, exhilarating, sometimes terrifying gift, and I hope that this week, you find yourself embracing it with everything you've got. I hope that, amidst all of the heaviness and darkness that the world tries to throw at you, hope and joy can be your sparks in the fight.  Because there's too much beauty left in the world for you to let joy be a crumb. Happy Tuesday, friends. Go read a poem, or hug your humans, or let the sun wash over your face. Listen to your favorite song and text someone to tell them you love them and eat some dark chocolate, just because.  May you find more joy along the way than you thought was possible.

what is it?

Hi, friends. It's been a minute. ----- I had absolutely no intentions of stepping away from this space. I truly didn't.  Life got wild, and, well, you know the drill.  Anyways, this is just me slowly trying to make my way back. :-)  I've still been writing a lot while I've been away - in the Tuesday Letters, over on Insta...basically everywhere *except* for here. Hopefully we're changing that. But before I get into life updates and all of that good stuff, I wanted to give this piece a space to live here on the blog.  I shared these words back in July, less than a week before my twenty-first birthday. They're a big chunk of my heart over the past year or so - the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's a piece that means a lot to me, and I thought it deserved a permanent space. I hope you're all doing so, so well, and that October has been a kind one. Wishing you clear skies. xx ----- 7.13.21 "He rained down manna for the people to eat, He gave them the grain of Heaven." - Psalm 78:24 ----- The sunlight is gentle through my window today. It's been the kind of thunderstormy day that makes up most of the summertime in the south, with two minute downpours that give way to the clearest of skies minutes later. It's quiet now, hazier, and the golden light that normally pours into my bedroom is tinged by the clouds. As I'm sitting here trying to peck out this letter that's probably going to end up far more vulnerable than I'd planned, I'm DMing a friend, asking the question that you probably are, too - how are we already almost halfway through July? Some days feel so slow, and yet the summer is absolutely flying by. I looked at a calendar last night and realized just how soon classes will be starting up, and I think that I've decided that I don't need to look at calendars anymore. Denial is a healthy coping mechanism, right? ----- The next time that a Tuesday Letter lands in your inbox, I'll be twenty-one. All week, I've found myself thinking about life a year ago - how different it was, in so many ways. How much has stayed the same, both in ways I'm grateful for and in ways that I'd give anything to change. And amidst the mess of it all, in looking back and sorting through the summer that broke my heart, I remember being so completely terrified to turn twenty. I wrote about it, as I do most things, so if you were around a year ago, this isn't news to you. But I was so anxious, in a way that was almost paralyzing, because I felt as though I'd hit two decades of life with nothing to show for it. I wasn't where I'd hoped I'd be on my timeline, and I didn't know what to do with that. ----- If I'm being dead honest, twenty has quite possibly been the hardest year of my life. The first six months to the day were a sea of grief, and I've spent the past six trying to figure out where to go from there. My initial anxieties about being twenty - worries about things I hadn't done or made it to - quickly faded to the back of my radar as I became settled in the fact that there was nothing truly momentous about a new decade; each day was another day like any other. But instead I felt so bogged down with the weight of everything in day to day life that I simply wanted to breathe. ----- In the Old Testament, there's a story in which the Israelites wander the desert for forty years. They're searching for the Promised Land, but they can't get there - God won't let them. They were disobedient and didn't trust Him, and so He left them to wander. Without help, all of the Israelites would have died quickly in the barren desert. But six days a week, God rained bread down from the heavens for them to eat - manna. There's a post on Jane Marczewski's blog called "God is on the Bathroom Floor". In the post, Jane, better known as Nightbirde, writes about her relationship with God amidst tragedy. Immense trauma left physical damage to her brain, and she write about the autumn that she spent wrestling with God in the rawest way.

"I remind myself," she writes, "that I’m praying to the God who let the Israelites stay lost for decades. They begged to arrive in the Promised Land, but instead He let them wander, answering prayers they didn’t pray. For forty years, their shoes didn’t wear out. Fire lit their path each night. Every morning, He sent them mercy-bread from heaven. I look hard for the answers to the prayers that I didn’t pray. I look for the mercy-bread that He promised to bake fresh for me each morning. The Israelites called it manna, which means “what is it?”  That’s the same question I’m asking—again, and again. There’s mercy here somewhere—but what is it? What is it? What is it?"

It's the question that I think I've spent the last year asking: what is the mercy here? Where is the good? I know in my brain that You are good, but I look around and ask: where is it? What is it? I find myself feeling like a hypocrite, writing letters and posts and emails in the morning about finding the good, seeing the good, and then turning to my journal the same night and questioning when I'll see it myself.

But then the post continues, and the words of a woman who's known more pain than I can fathom are a balm to my heart.

"I see mercy in the dusty sunlight that outlines the trees, in my mother’s crooked hands, in the blanket my friend left for me, in the harmony of the wind chimes. It’s not the mercy that I asked for, but it is mercy nonetheless. And I learn a new prayer: thank you. It’s a prayer I don’t mean yet, but will repeat until I do."

When I look back over the last year, over twenty, and I really look at it, I see where the mercy lies all over it. Oh, I spent the year praying for mercy alright, and at first glance, it never came. Those midnight prayers and whispers as I went about the day sometimes feel like nothing more than that - whispers. But mercy was there nonetheless. It's not obvious, not screaming for attention, but it's there, in the grace of a quiet morning with my mother and sunlight on my back porch and the kindness of someone miles away. And no, it wasn't the mercy that I asked for, but since when am I the one to make the call on the mercy that I deserve? Who am I to negate the mercy I've been handed? I spent most of twenty feeling as though the overwhelm of it all would crush me. But that's the thing about manna - you always get exactly as much as you need. God didn't leave the Israelites to starve, and He also didn't give them more than their share. God isn't a God of messy estimates - He gives exactly the portion you need to be handed. And so I'm reminded that despite the chaos, despite the heaviness, I'm still here, in many ways in a place that I couldn't have imagined eight months ago. And there is no ounce of false belief in my mind that I could have managed that alone, that I got myself here. It was all manna. And that's where the prayer comes in: "thank you". The whisper of a prayer that we don't always mean, but repeat until we do. Thank you for grace. Thank you for breath. Thank you for manna, rained down in the portion that we so need, even when it's the furthest thing from what we hoped for or asked for or wanted. It's a daily act - finding the manna in the desert. Recognizing it for what it is when it didn't come in the form that you thought it would, dropping gratitude from your dry lips day after day after day. Because if I'm going to wander, at least I'm not doing it alone. I don't think that twenty will ever be a year that I look back on with fondness. But I also hope that when I think back to these days, I remember the manna - even as it's a daily process of finding it. Maybe it's rarely been what I asked for, maybe it's never been what I asked for. But it's sustenance all the same, because it was never about my plans, anyways, was it? I am here and I have been sustained, and that's the greatest mercy of all. So, here's to twenty-one. I don't have the faintest idea what it will hold in any way - but I know that I will be sustained. And I know that the manna will still be here. And so I whisper "thank you" until I mean it, letting my days become tinged with gratitude like streaks of color in the sky, because there is mercy here.