Red Nails

Tags

feminism, womanhood

When I was little my aunts and grandmothers told me that red nails were not for little girls, they were for grown women. I suppose I took red make-up in general to then be synonymous of womanhood. Like once a girl was ready to embrace being a W-O-M-A-N than then she could wear the color red. Maybe its why on days, like today, when I feel whole and womanly I reach for lipstick in the reddest red.

I’ve always thought the sexiest outfits a woman can wear are one of two things: a fitted white tee-shirt and blue jeans, or a knee-length little black dress. Simple. Classic. And in many ways, are not about the outfits themselves at all. On my sassy days, I’d pair the outfit with red lips, as I did today, and feel complete. It wasn’t until today that I realized some of the meaning that might be held in my favorite things.

I’ve made it no secret, my desire for love. I was watching Iyanla, Fix My Life and she was speaking about weight. She said we put it on when we are protecting ourselves from something. Nothing new. But something repetitive as I’d read the sentiment in an instagram post a friend made about women holding weight in our midsections to protect our most precious treasures; our reproductive parts. When I heard Iyanla speak I remembered this and it dawned on me that as I’d just eaten McDonald’s for the 2nd time this week that there was something I needed to hear. Then she said, you are using other people to make you feel good about you…you can’t do that!

I do that. In a lot of ways, in the past it’d been far more destructive more…needy. I can see it now…here. For as much as I don’t write for comments in the comments section or likes on facebook…posting “selfies” and smiling when my number of “double taps” exceeds 30…I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good. Damn good. And I think that makes me nervous. Because the taste of it is intoxicating and I can see myself reaching for it as I used to reach for….well many things that weren’t good for me or to me.

I went to a coaching session today and was asked, “And what if you are abandoned? Do you believe in you enough?” I answered that I better. But that word, abandoned. It felt like opening the door on a freezing cold morning. My breath escaped me completely. And in my heart of hearts, really in the core of me…which rests in that midsection I’ve protected so well (haha) I knew I did. Because even when I let go of people, I do so holding on to something else far greater than myself. I may get left, and I may feel lonely…but I am never alone. And I recalled that in the moments when I’m trusting, I never even feel alone. I feel full. And whole. And like a woman. Like a mother.

I can’t wait to have a daughter. To share with her all the power she holds as a woman. The power I, for many years, believed existed solely in my physical being. Red nails, red lips, slim waist and a voluptuous body…my womanhood is not limited to those things. And I have arrived at the place where I can say I love women. I love the company of women, I love being a woman, I believe us to be beautiful, magical, strong, and courageous beings. The things that make us us…well I was, honestly, being dated and chauvanistic. Physical beauty or the elements thereof is not where my womanhood begins and it certainly is not where it ends. It is about creation. Innovation. Listening to intuition and trusting yourself. It is about dancing and movement and connection. It is about sensuality and sexuality braided together with an unshakable knowledge of self. That’s red. That’s womanhood. Or at least what I know of it to date.

11:11

It’s funny the things we find ourselves wishing for. On stars. On birthdays. On eleven eleven. Last night I call him and as the phone rang I wondered what I was doing. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to talk to him. Simple as that. So I let it ring. On the third ring I considered if it was him or some other him I wanted. Who did I want to answer the phone? The same old unavailable him, or was I wishing for him 2.0. New and improved? And then the voicemail. He was asleep. Or unwilling to take the call. Or…as the machine announced a name that wasn’t him the air left my chest.

Hadn’t we just talked? I searched my phone for messages but I couldn’t find them. Deleted in a fit of loathing. But I know that number by heart. Its one of only 5 that I do. I laid in bed confused. Feeling more alone than I had just minutes prior. Wishing desperately that I hadn’t called. What did I gain by knowing? After over a decade that perhaps that last time we were right, we can’t be friends anymore.

So imagine my surprise today when my eyes caught the clock and in the seconds I had to consider before the moment was lost I wished for love. Not health. Not money. Not new shoes or a fun day or a pleasant surprise…all things I’ve wished for previously. In the knee-jerk tick tock from the mausoleum of my first, I was wishing for my last.

Sorority, Blackness, and Home

A few months ago I was invited to be part of a planning committee dedicated to putting on two events for “women in leadership.” I found the invitation to be quite curious because while I am indeed a woman in the field of leadership, that was not the area of interest I was passionate about. In fact, to call myself a woman without the qualifier black woman feels remiss and incomplete. Though at the time it felt wrong, the pairing of me and this group I felt strongly that the invitation was extended, perhaps, for a greater more abstract reason.

Ever since I was a child I wanted to be in a sorority. Educated in a private prep school requiring pink jumpers for girls and green khakis for boys, looking up to women like my headmaster, I saw my eventual pursuit was something of a given. Upon entering college and having the dream be closer to actualization I was met with the reality of politics. That’s perhaps the best word for it. And in the time between then and fairly recently, the pursuit was superficial. It was the thing I always thought I would do, the thing that was expected of me. I even struggled to reconcile which organization fit me because so much of my own thoughts were entangled in perceived expectations of others.

The thing that has become important to me is my role within the Black community. Its something I never really considered before, and at some points during my past would have even seen as limiting or crippling. Wanting to dull the shine of my Black identity because of the distance it may put between myself and others. Wanting to remain calm and even-keeled working under threat of being yet another angry Black woman. I, too, had bought into the idea that in order to succeed in the way I wanted to succeed, I would have to dilute my blackness, my atlantaness, my otherness.

What I have come to realize be grateful for is being completely out of my element here in San Diego. I will never be the pretty that is pretty here. So I’ve had to embrace my own. My inability to fit in has challenged me to appreciate myself in an entirely new way. Not only that, but my pride in some areas has developed immensely. I’ve become so proud to be Southern. Black. Young. Shapely. Because really my only other option was discomfort and probably self loathing, or resentment.

So I look at women. I say, yes I am a woman. A Black woman, but a woman. And I don’t clarify to indicate that we’re completely different, because I think some things are universal to the experience of this gender. But I add it to indicate that my womanness resides within this context. That sometimes the agreeable docile, “quiet storm” type woman doesn’t fit my lived experience.

And I look at sorority. And I think that in a place like this, I really do wish I was connected to more women who understood more of my experience. The journey of navigating two words, the journey of navigating the roles of two gender roles (being powerful and strong, yet loving and supportive) the dizzying spin of professional politics and general growing pains. I think of the collective legacy the organizations leave within our communities and I want to be apart of that. I couldn’t have articulated that with any real sense of knowing before now.

And while I still think, SoCal is not for me. I find myself fashioning a flag to be placed when I leave. Not solely to mark that I was here, but to testify that it was here that I laid claim to myself. That I owned parts of me I felt were undesirable or even took for granted. I appreciate my struggle here. It serves as my strength, and in using it I’ve connected to causes, and people, and have grown, but not up…down. Here at the edge near the ocean I sunk my roots into the earth and I stood proud.

I think it is because of that, because of having to confront all my facets that I can really appreciate the richness. I see how deep my own well is and I know others’ are the same. I look back and sincerely thank god that somethings I’ve prayed for haven’t come to pass. Because I wasn’t ready for them. I wouldn’t have know what to do with them.

Which brings me to a quick point about love. I told a friend tonight that its funny you can look back on a relationship and say man…I barely had one toe in that union. Even if at the time it felt otherwise. And sometimes its intentional, but other times its because that toe’s worth of You is all you have access to. You can’t give what you don’t have. So I realize in my recent petitions to god I’ve asked for a partner to love with my wholeheart. And I backed up to first say, god give me access to my whole heart, help me to get there first.

And it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be authentic. As open as I can be, and when its time to go deeper, he has his shovel too and isn’t just helping me pile my dirt. Which is why I think right now is so perfect. Roots. I’ve got those, but the branching out, the blossoming, the growing? I don’t have to do that alone, and I don’t want to. Hence this idea of sorority. Its about the collective, the we, the fist…that and love are things I used to claim I wanted yet actively worked against. But not now. Not since settling in to me. Honestly not since realizing this idea of abandonment v. Engulfment. I wasn’t looking for a new definition of sister. Woman. Black. Me. But the rejection of these words as others described them felt like they didn’t include me. I’ve somehow been able to negotiate a balance of sorts. Where I do not feel left out nor overwhelmed by them. And I can own my desire for sorority, and companionship. I can own my identity as a woman and a Black woman. I can own my sense of Black. Imperfect though it all may be, the messiness is just life. Its part of the experience. The mess. The muck. The unkempt. It is evidence of life in motion. The dynamic fluidity: I am always becoming.

Fat is the new Black

Tags

abercrombie & fitch, brides, fat, feminism, forgiveness, hatred, Love, racism, self love, sexism, weight

Once upon a time arguably one of the worst yet socially acceptable things I could have been called was the nword. Then of course, if I were a lesbian I would have been a dyke. That was the worst. But now that we’re an evolved, post-racial love is love America (tongue firmly in cheek), fat has become the new Black.

Jess sent me an article about the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch who said that his brand caters to the “All-American” cool and beautiful. After I read the article I was filled with a lot of emotions but mostly sadness. Sadness that this is in any way acceptable and honestly sad that someone hates themselves that much they’re emoting that much hate into the world. So after I sent him some love…I had my own epiphany. That I’m just like him.

One of my favorite quotes to re-tweet comes from my friend La. She’s such a feminist. And I never really considered myself to be, but this is one of those quotes that continually hits home. And while the A&F CEO said it very candidly, privately, I reserve “joy” and “love” and “happiness” and “beauty” to a specific demographic as well. But I don’t blame men. Or women. Or any One in particular, its shared.  After reading the article I thought about La’s quote and then I thought about fat brides. Its no secret that I have this irrational contempt for so-called fat brides. I guess in my head for the most perfect day a woman should look her most dazzling and that includes being thin.

What I was failing to realize was that I was imposing unfair, unjust, and horribly judgmental expectations on other women and on myself. This dissonance in The Bride and the overweight woman sounded like an out of tune piano or an amateur cellist. I couldn’t reconcile the two ideals because I in my mind perfect never ever could be anything other than thin. Fit. “Healthy” whatever term most appropriate to describe this woman in my head.

In my defense of all those above a size 10 standing outside the A&F target demographic I found myself also in defense of me. I can’t quite explain it…but it was like I gave myself permission to change the rules and live my own way. I thought back on enduring (very minimal) teasing in middle school about my weight, yet still managing to persevere through it. Same for high school.

So I googled ‘plus size bridal’ and came across a photo. A photo of a woman I don’t think is fat at all. In a dress that flatters her figure. And I imagine women walking down the aisle towards the women or men they love in this dress and feeling love. Not fat. I decided then that these gross thoughts of body ideals were no longer welcome and that in life I would focus my attention to experience rather than how the snapshot of it looks. And I would examine my own insecurities before I jumped to judge anyone else. Its weird that such a lover of love would get caught up in the aesthetics of a “wedding day” over the emotional and spiritual significance. But I think for me so often feeling and being (physically) manifest in tandem. My issue was that the picture I had for happy, as in the type of overflowing happiness found within the container of a wedding dress on a wedding day, was trapped in a size 6.

What a shift. Subtle, but huge in me. And I apologize. To other women, to myself…for judging. For placing limits and conditions on beauty. For restricting joy. For filling the word ‘fat’ with my own loathing and discomfort and thinking it acceptable as a label whether I said it aloud or not.

I recognize that until we as a society turn inward and begin to sort through our own shit, someone is always going to be the nigger. The fag. The fat. There will always be a target whom we will aim our self-hatred at. I, personally want to break the cycle for me. And as always the work boils down to love, and forgiveness which I think is the act of truly loving. 

Everything under the sun

Tags

bikini, body image, body joy, fluvia lacerda, Love, plus size, summer, weight

I have a month almost exactly before I board a flight to Jamaica. I set the goal to lose 20lbs before takeoff like a week and a half ago. I have no clue how much weight I’ve lost because I don’t own a scale nor do I desire to…but I bought a pair of jeans a size down from what I normally need. Typically, I am an 18 (in jeans)…but Old Navy recently did some funky stuff with sizing so I was actually a 20 in their jeans and in skinny jeans even that was pushing it. However I comfortably slid into an 18 on Saturday. I decided that was worth it. That and zipping up a size 16 dress. Plus all the water I’ve been drinking has curbed my appetite TREMENDOUSLY. If I only had to offer two pieces of advice I’d say drink more water and keep filling snacks! I’ve leaned on pretzel thins, fruits, almonds and the like for my between meal snack attacks.

All that to say…I’m heading to an island that celebrates curves and I can’t wait. I read an old Fluvia Lacerda article where she talked about having 2 drawers worth of bikinis and her adamant refusal to be obsessed with what other people thought of her body. She was going to “let it all hang out under the sun without the hang-ups.” I loved that so much I made her picture my ipad desktop. Not because of her body…but because of her love of her body. Its not “not giving a Eff” its quite the opposite. Its loyalty and care to self.

I went without makeup last weekend. Something I never, no really…never do. And I had that same feeling Fulvia described; freedom, love, and sunshine. I just wanted to feel the sun on my bare skin. That was my only thought. And I didn’t want to not be able to touch my face for fear of messing it up. I just wanted to be.

I guess I say all that to say, when I head down to Jamrock I want to leave insecurity stateside. If it feels like a day for bareskin I don’t want to think twice about the decision. I refuse to obsess about bathing suits or outfits or anything of the sort. And if you know me, you know that is not me, at all. But I just want to live. Live in the moment and soak it all in as best I can. I just want to feel all I can feel without the barriers or veils of fantasy between us.

Petition to the Universe: Part V–God

Its raining. And I just watched Blue Like Jazz. Filled with an inexplicable something, I searched and found:

“…to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can’t accept who God is; a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people…That is why God tells us so many times to love each other.” ― Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

And I wept from the very core of me.

God,
I want, more than anything, to be able to lean into you. To forego excuses of doubt and shame, and to speak candidly from my heart, your dwelling place. I want to, in all things, breath first and check my equilibrium to see if the ground is solid. I want to incorporate a pause prior to my actions and reactions; a pause to curb my ego and yield to you.

There are parts of myself I don’t want to look at in the mirror. The part of myself who is fiscally irresponsible. The part of myself that takes a backseat to insecurity in relationships.  The part of me that feels like a fraud everywhere in academia except for in my writing. And I don’t point it out to poke and prod, I point it out to call loves attention to a place in need of healing.

When I read the quote above I wept. Can you love another? I ask myself. Can you love yourself? More than sometimes. Can you love yourself who’s hair isn’t perfect? Can you love yourself who’s thighs touch? Can you love yourself who makes a “B”? are you fiercely determined to love you by any means necessary? Is wanting to be good enough?

I ask of you that you help me learn to celebrate my imperfections—and help me not to see them as such. I want to feel, truly feel, fearfully and wonderfully made. God I don’t know where my life partner is…but if he were to come tomorrow help me to show up to the meeting.

Its raining. And as the earth is cleansed of its toxins and is made clean, and is refreshed allow my spirit to be also.

Stupid.

I woke up this morning to my phone going off. It was making noises and I thought it was my alarm so when I slapped it and it didn’t stop I had to wake all the way up and figure out the situation. I should probably note that I 200% despise being woken up.

Looking at my phone, I see messages from him. Cue a floodgate opening and every single emotion under the sun crashing through. In his omnipresent elusive way he hints at things being “up and down” lately. I know that when he sent it he would know two things: 1. That I would immediately ask what’s been going on? And 2. That I’m still invested. And I know this because he knows me. Still. So I turned my phone off and rolled back over and went to sleep.

When I woke up I was angry. I wrote him back a message that didn’t inquire about his ambiguous hint and ended it with “I’m good”. He hates that. And I know because I know him. Maybe I shouldn’t have responded at all. I think he does it just to see if I still care. Because he gets hurt when it seems I’ve forgotten him. I really really wish I could.

Then I got mad at myself. And I growled to the universe, “Can I please request a partner with emotional maturity?!” I remembered how deep this stuff can run and how long it can linger if it runs that deep.

And even though I don’t believe it (entirely) Im gonna say it: loving that much is stupid. I’m self aware to know that this after last night feels like a double dose of rejection, but this one hurts far worse. I honestly just wish he’d go away and stay away. Or stay. Selfishly he wont do either.

Thou shalt not be an emotional anorexic: pretending to be full off of crumbs.

My night as Hannah Horvath

Tags

cute guys, girls, Hannah horvath, hbo girls, twenty something life

Last night I went out with a few friends and I saw a cute bartender…isn’t it always a cute bartender? And we chatted (begrudgingly on my part because my friends literally made me) and he mentioned me coming back today. I thought it was weird then…I thought, “What the hell…I’ll be like Hannah Horvak and I’ll go on this adventure if only for the cool story it’ll make later when I write about it.” Granted, going to talk to a cute bartender isn’t exactly equivalent to taking crack and going to a rave…but in my world it kind of is. Before I left, J told me don’t be a Hannah be a Jessa. But I don’t think I even know how to be a Jessa anymore…Jessa bails and I’m trying to learn to stick around. And as a Hannah it’s anything for a good story…because its very likely that I am the voice of my generation.

So I went, I flirted, I thought I was being pretty transparent but maybe he just wasn’t interested. Except (and yes I realize that I am ranting in true Hannah fashion, to you my nonexistent Marnie(s)) so yes, except he was totally flirting with me. And not just in a oh yeah you’re kind of cute but I have a girlfriend so I can’t really talk to you way. He was flirting in a “this is when I get off work,” “my day is better now that you’re here” kind of way. Only…he didn’t ever ask for my phone number. Which to me meant he wasn’t interested. And typically I would be okay with that, but with the mixed messages I just ended up leaving confused and a bit embarrassed.

The silver lining here is that after literally almost 2 years I feel really ready to date and enjoy the company of men. In fact I would go so far as to say I want to date. That is monumental for me. I seriously wondered when I’d feel like that again. Maybe this guy, this cute guy with tattoos and good teeth, was just a way to tempt me into making my intentions known to the universe?

Cue simple kind of life.

Reflections after Day One

Tags

academia, action research, authenticity, dissertation, higher education, phd, Reflection, self inquiry, student affairs, true self

After one of those weeks where I feel blessed beyond measure to be one within this community of people who encourage questions uncertainty and growth in the now…there was more.

It has been a long day and at the end of it, all I wanted was quiet. I wanted to close my eyes with my keyboard in my lap, as I am doing right now, and let all the words that had bubbled to the surface of my consciousness flow out of my fingertips. I write from the purest space when my eyes are closed. It’s like I can hear better then. I suppose it makes sense…because when vision is taken away then the other senses are heightened. Also, it is curious that I rarely make typing mistakes when my eyes are closed, or if I do I can correct them easily, however when my eyes are open I stumble all over the place. Curious and yet not curious at all.

Anyway, so I spent my day at an Action Research Conference at my university. Ever since I really understood what it was, I’ve been fascinated by it, mainly because the rsearcher has a place in the work and reflection is welcomed. I seems like a type of research that fits with me…I can imagine that throughout my dissertation process if I did not do action research, I would have jornals upon journals filled with thoughts and reflections. Why not make the apart of the process? Anyway so I had so many memorable quotes and reflections (to see them check out the hashtag #SOLESar2013) but among them, was this:

2. Willingness of practitioner to self-disclose, telling his or her own story and how that relates to that of the students they advise. Vulnerability begets vulnerability, are we, in student affairs practitioner training programs, setting an expectation of discomfort/uncertainty/vulnerability? <>Torbert
–>>idea of self disclosure opening one up to judgment and questions of the safety of space as excuse to avoid the work of vulnerability. Work avoidance.
–>>action research on dynamics course?

I find myself, throughout the refinement of my research area of interest, constantly trying to balance my love of self-work and the practitioner, and how said work then affections our actions, and the self-work itself. At first I wanted to look at how practitioners rejuvenate, spiritually. Then I wanted to look at how spiritual practice affected decision making. That turned into how identity (en totale) affects decision making. Which evolved into how decision making processes are different for those with different identities. That, then, became looking at how identity negotiation and salience affected decision making. And now we have arrived at how the development of the practitioner affects the development of the practitioner. And perhaps it is not yet done evolving because it still has to get smaller, more focused. The obvious choice, after hearing today would be to explore story-telling and how transparency/authenticity/vulnerability of the practitioner affected their students. But…when I step back from it all and think about what all these things have in common I see, self work, and how that somehow informs professional practice. In what ways do we bring our true self to our professions? And how does that influence our product/output?

I think that this absolutely comes from self-inquiry. I HAVE to feel at home in work in order for me to do it. I cannot just put my head down and bear through things, I have to make a bed in work. Swim in it. Live in it. I have to be intimately connected to my work. I think that is why I a really good at jobs I love and really horrible at jobs I do not love. In those instances…I bail. In reflecting on a situation where I was being asked (silently) to connect and to share in a time and space where I felt I shouldn’t have it, I bailed. In looking back I wish I would have realized in that moment or in those series of moments that I was being solicited for intimacy and withstood the discomfort…my OWN discomfort for the growth of something bigger than myself and more resilient/functional/useful than my shadow. Once upon a time it may have served me to retreat? Maybe? But I guess I now want to call attention to it and stand firm in the eye of it…and I want to know how other people are coming to those conclusions as well.

Long day…still processing, but lost in thought isn’t the worst place to wander.

#20byTakeoff

Tags

black girls run, exercise, journey, running, weight, weight loss, willpower, workout

In a mere 7 weeks I leave for Jamaica where I will be for exactly 20 days.  Curb your jealous, I know. I know. But I have issued a challenge for myself. In the days between right now and June 8th I want to lose 20lbs.

First, a story. So a while back I mentioned talking to an old friend about her amazingly spectacular  100+ pound weight loss and I set the same goal for myself. Since that time I never stopped wanting it, but I was never truly committed to the goal. I would start something then quit, start then quit, start then…you get the picture. I do not really diet but I do try to eat well, but if I ate as well as I often allude to eat then I highly doubt I’d have some of these issues. But I digress. I can woman up and speak to it, I love sweets. I do.  I have a thing for ice creams and gelatos, cakes and cookies…sweet stuff is my thing. I also snack at night.  These two things I stared at sternly in the corners of my conscious and said to them, You have to go.

Next, I recognized this irrational discomfort surrounding food preparation. Namely because my roommate is a SUPER healthy eater and sometimes I order pizza…so I would eat down in my room and only when she wasn’t in the kitchen would I venture into the kitchen. I realized one day when I let myself get so hungry that my stomach was beating me up as I waited for her to leave the kitchen that I had an issue.  I was ashamed of what I knew I was going to do. It sounds like a drug addict. I remember this one episode of Private Practice when Shepard had gotten hooked back on pills and in an intervention they made her use in front of everyone. The addictions counselor said, “Oh no you don’t, you do it out here for everyone to see.” It felt kind of like that. Only, I don’t want to shame myself, but I do want to be proud of what I’m putting into my body. I want to openly engage in public displays of affection with my own body.

I knew what needed to be done. I mean who doesn’t? Exercise, eat well, drink water…it’s the things you hear all the time only now I want to do them. I watched my birthday cake disappear piece by piece until I finally threw it out because I knew  I would finish it if it stayed. I bought veggies, quinoa, lean meats like salmon and talapia. I said “No” to salt and said “Hell yes” to a gallon of water a day.

And I ran.

I made up excuse after excuse at 6:00am, 7:00am, 8:00am about why I couldn’t go…it was cold…it was foggy…it was WORK was the true reason. I didn’t want to do it. I went to work and had the kind of day where everyone is annoying you just because they are there. I couldn’t pinpoint where my sour mood was coming from. On top of that, I kept being interrupted by bathroom breaks from this darn gallon of water challenge. So I got home, turned on the TV flopped down on the couch and went to my google reader where I saw this (Mama Laughlin). She wrote:

I was SO TIRED and PISSED that I had to get up so early.

That I had to make those kind of sacrifices to get in my workouts.

I was resentful that I didn’t have enough time in the day.

But you know what I did?

I sucked it up, got up, and got my ass to the gym at 5am.

And the craziest thing happened…. within 10 minutes of sweating I started to feel better.

I wasn’t pissed off anymore and my day instantly turned around.

Being that I was in a similar mood I decided…lets go. So I changed clothes, and went for a run (a very slow run) around my neighborhood. Yes I stopped for breaks. Yes I felt like I wanted to d.i.e. because the last mile was uphill. Yes my lungs ached, and my feet were heavy and sweat dripped, and I’m sure cars were passing me like, “She might as well be walking,” but I did not care. 45 minutes later I was home and I felt amazing. I snapped a picture and I decided that the only way to shed some light on all the truth I have been hiding is to do what I always do….invite love in, invite truth in, write.

So here I am. I want to commit to at least archiving the 7 week journey here…maybe later tonight I will create a separate tab just for my #20byTakeoff challenge. But I welcome new visitors, old familiars, supporters, encouragers, strangers, and loved ones to see the yucky underbelly of what it looks like to start from scratch for the bajillionth time.

For my twitter updates: @PhDubb

For my instagram photos: @PhDubb

It ain’t always gonna be pretty, but I promise it’ll always be the truth.