herhonestadventures

[herhonestadventures]

As a kid, she used to spend hours laying on her bedroom floor with headphones plugged into a CD player, staring at the ceiling. Her mind wandered through dreams, hopes and fears. She can still remember it like it was yesterday. The way the carpet felt, the way the room would be lit by the window depending on the time of day. She was always thinking about the future, and how she couldn’t wait to get there. Things were really bad back then. Those were dark times, years filled with sorrow. And before things did get better, they got a hell of a lot worse. But she survived. You can’t see her scars, and though there are years of age to them, they feel vividly fresh. She understands that anyone is capable of containing immense amounts of pain underneath their skin, she understands that sometimes surviving doesn’t equate to thriving, she understands that growth takes time. She’ll be patient with you. She won't tell you where or who you need to be. She’ll be the one who watches and listens, quietly celebrating your new life and your small steps towards healthy happiness.

@herhonestadventures

[herhonestadventures]

[herhonestadventures]

Prompt #1: Describe the most beautiful sound you have ever heard.

It is hard to for me to choose one thing as the single most beautiful sound I have ever heard, but the first thing that comes to my mind is the sound of the Western Meadowlark’s call. I remember being a young child, growing up in Waterville, laying in my bed on summer mornings. The sun would wake me up close to 6:00am, and the first things I would hear would be the meadowlarks outside. I did not know what kind of bird it was then, in fact I didn’t learn it was the Meadowlark until I was in my 20s. But I will never forget how beautiful that sound is. There was so much darkness and hard times in my childhood. I remember the nights were so long and so heavy. I carried so much weight on my shoulders and in my heart, and for many years there was no relief. But here and there, in strange, random things, I would find a glimmer of hope. The 6:00am Meadowlark’s song somehow always managed to bring a strange sense of comfort, a moment of believing that maybe things were going to be okay. To this day that sound brings an eerie peace to my soul, if there can be such a thing. This world is filled with beautiful sounds, but that song is near and dear to my spirit.

[herhonestadventures]

Dear Mountains, I hear your calls. I hear your songs and I hear your stories. I will listen.

[herhonestadventures]

300 Writing Prompts

A dear friend of mine recently stumbled upon a nifty little journal at Target that contains 300 different prompts for you to journal about. She showed it to me and I thought it would be a groovy way that I could share more of myself over my blog. I’m not sure that I’m going to do them all in order, I may just randomly open to them, but I’d like to try this out for a while and see where it goes. : )

[herhonestadventures]

[herhonestadventures]

There is a pretty song that says, “I don’t want to know the places you’ve been, just want to hold you in my arms again. Tell me where you’re going, not where you’ve been.” But what if where I’ve been is a part of me? What if where and what I came from, what I’ve walked through and what I’ve survived made me who I am today? Where I’m going will soon be behind me, it will become my past. My past and my present contains both light and darkness. There will not be one without the other. So while I’m living in this moment, trying to cope, heal and recover, I’m also remembering the light peeking through the shadows. I was grown on the plateau of rolling fields of wheat. Blue Mountains in the far distance, sky so open and the wind rolls through like a song. At night the stars are so bright you think they are looking back at you. Coyotes, meadowlarks and morning doves. Dust, combines and old trucks. This is part of me. But you wouldn’t know, because you don’t see me. You don’t care to ask the questions, and you don’t care to know the answers.

[herhonestadventures]

Oh winter, you in all of your splendor. I admire your beauty and welcome your quiet stillness. But my skin can only ache for sunlight for so long, my body can only tolerate the gray for a short time. My mind grows weary of the sorrowful nostalgia you bring. You make my eyes fill with wonder, but you make my heart so heavy. May you linger only as long as you must.

[herhonestadventures]

My best friend departs on a crazy 5-month long adventure today. She’s doing a DTS in Denver, Colorado and for a couple months she’ll be doing mission work in a foreign country. She’s the kind of person that is willing to chase the light no matter how far or where it may take her. She’s a wild and bright soul, and I know that wherever she goes, she will touch lives in the deep sort of way that she has changed mine. This girl is my person. She was the first genuine friend I made when I started my journey in recovery. She’s shared so much adventure, laughter and joy with me, and she blesses me in ways unlike any other. My heart is heavy and saddened, I will miss her. But I’m moreover excited for her to do the things she was always meant to. I love, love love this woman. 💗💗#chasersofthelight #thebestmaidofhonor #lifechanger

[herhonestadventures]

2017:Hellos and Goodbyes

2017 was both one of my favorite, and least favorite years. It was filled with a lot of great memories and also a lot of struggles and dark days. It was a year of new beginnings and a year of closing doors. It was a year of extremes, it had really highs and really lows.

I walked into 2017 with high hopes. I was eager and excited for what could lay around the corner, what adventure I would find. But just two weeks into January, I walked through the hardest days of the whole year. My dog, Buddy, who was living with my parents because my apartment doesn’t allow pets, became extremely sick. He rapidly declined in health and started refusing to eat. I took him to the vet and told them to do any test they needed to find out what was wrong with him. Turns out his lungs were full of cancer that had to have spread from somewhere else in his body. He was put on comfort measures in hopes to help him relax and pass peacefully at home, but nothing worked. His condition deteriorated so rapidly and he began to greatly suffer. So, on January 15th of 2017, I had to part with my closest and dearest friend. I made the decision to euthanize him and end his suffering. I have remained perforated ever since.

Those high hopes I had for 2017 became very quiet, sometimes silent. You see, Buddy wasn’t just a dog. He wasn’t just a companion. From age 10 to 18 he was the reason I kept living. He was my life, my everything, my soulmate. So losing him was like losing myself. He wasn’t just a dog. He was my safe place. He was my sunshine. I’ve sung that song to him more times than I can count. So now I’ve been left to figure out how to live without him, and it has been very, very hard.

Ryan, who I got to marry in 2017, has been immensely patient with my state of grieving. He walked with me through 2017 and helped me keep my head above water. In marrying him I was welcomed into a new family. I said hello to a new last name and a whole new life. I am so grateful and so blessed. Marriage has been above and beyond expectation. : )

In 2017 I also got to see two of my favorite people, my dear brother and his wife marry each other. Their happiness was deeply shared by us, I am so thankful to have seen their lives come together after years of waiting and delays.

I also got to travel with my husband and his family to Oahu’, which was a blast. The ocean will forever have captivated part of me. : )

I also had to say a few more goodbyes. I attended a number of funerals in 2017 and shared in others’ losses. The year was filled with ups and downs, hellos and goodbyes, highs and lows. It contained some of the best and some of the worst. As 2017 came to a close I left it rather unceremoniously. It may sound bitter to say, but I’m glad that 2017 is over. I’m glad to keep moving forward and further distancing myself from it.

I’m ready for a new year, and a new life. My hopes for 2018 are to worry less and live more. I want to spend more time doing the things that I love to do. I want to become a better wife every day, a better friend and a better person. I want to celebrate more. I want my grief and mourning to soften, I want to be able to remember without falling apart. I want to be stronger this year. I want to heal more and learn more about how to be healthier mentally, emotionally and physically. But especially mentally. I want to take better care of myself and what is around me. I want to smile and laugh more. I want to climb more mountains and breath more fresh, sage-scented air. Every day I want to live a little freer. May we all become better, stronger, happier selves.

[herhonestadventures]

Christmas has come and gone, again. Some of us spent it with family, some of us spent it with friends or by ourselves. Some of us received gifts, some of us did not. Some of us don’t celebrate Christmas at all. But regardless Christmas day has visited us and it left as quickly as it came. For those of us who celebrated with family there is usually a task that is left behind: cleaning up the house. I slowly waded into that task this morning, and after I was about waist-deep I became a little irritated by the seeming ocean-sized waters ahead of me to conquer. I stopped, lit a candle, grabbed my second cup of coffee and I decided to sit down and write this. I am a perfectionist. I don’t mean kind-of, sort-of. I mean to say that Perfectionism is a huge struggle in my life. It effects probably almost everything I do. It often prevents me from accomplishing anything. There are dozens of “projects” or “tasks” that I feel need to be accomplished in my home. Things that have lingered long before the holiday arrived. Some of these things have lingered since before my wedding in May of this year. But you see my perfectionist brain doesn’t see them as individual tasks, my brain complies them altogether into one big untamable sea of waters. I want to start in one place, and finish everything. My brain doesn’t want to section each task out into one step at a time. I see everything all at once and I want to do it all at once. Consequently I feel discouraged and often I let things lay. I get overwhelmed and I feel guilty for that. Then more things pile up and I try to keep my head above water and it seems that is all I am really doing. Just keeping my head above water. No true progress, just maybe some maintenance. Every once in a while I’ll acquire some weird “energy” out of nowhere (I suspect it comes from pure frustration) and I’ll tackle a ton of tasks until I can’t go any further. But that’s as far as I get and I soon end up feeling like I’m drowning again. I’m 21 years old, I’m a wife, we have no children or pets. And I am barely keeping up. But aside from battling my perfectionism, I also fight daily battles against anxiety and depression. I’m on a journey of recovery from years worth of harm. I am safe now, I have a husband who loves me, a few close friends and family, and I am well taken care of. But I’m still healing and I’m still struggling. I’m writing all of this because maybe some of you can relate to this. Holidays sometimes hold painful memories, and maybe winter brings back feelings of sorrow and hurt to you. Maybe you are young like me, but feel inside like you’ve seen or survived enough for multiple lifetimes. Maybe you’re in a safe place now, but maybe you’re struggling like me. I just want you to know that you’re not alone, and life does not stop here. I’m choosing to put one foot in front of the other. Recovery and healing takes more time than this. If you’re like me, take heart my friend. Be thankful for the messes to clean up, for the waters to navigate, for the mountains to climb. They are each a new chance to grow. I’ll leave you with some words that have become my solid ground.

“Future gardens from all this rain, future flowers from present pain. We're bound together and our lives are bound to change, and you don’t know how beautiful you are.” - Jon Foreman