Big Heart

Sometimes I wish my heart was just a little smaller. 

That I would love a little lighter and care a little less. 

They say wearing your heart on your sleeve is endearing. It’s brave and a sign of strength. But also seems to cause a lot more hurt and leaves you in a much more vulnerable state. 

If my heart was just a little smaller, I could look past heartbreak and loss and sad times; get back in the saddle of life and conquer the next day that the sun rises. 

If my heart was a little smaller, I could make choices without second guessing them and never regret a moment of life. 

If only my heart was a little smaller. 

But I don’t have a small heart. I love hard. I care a lot. 

I wear my heart on my sleeve and when I love, I love a lot. 

I care about friends and family and life and how others feel. 

I have a huge heart that allows me to be there for people when they’re in need and even when they aren’t. 

I have a huge heart that allows me to love the right people unconditionally and more importantly, to love myself unconditionally. 

But still, I find myself occasionally wishing my heart was just a little smaller. To shield myself from life’s heartaches and lessons. 

Signed,

A girl with a big heart, who sometimes wishes it was a just little smaller. 

Too Much

And they tell me I’m too much.

I cry too often and laugh too loud and love too hard.

I’m too much.

They tell me there is no reason to be crying.

They tell me I laugh too loud, that it ‘wasn’t that funny’.

They tell me if I love too hard, I’ll push people away.

I’m too much.

So, I ask myself: who am I too much for?

For the person that doesn’t know that being emotionally mature doesn’t mean being emotionless?

For the person that doesn’t know that emotions make you human?

Who am I too much for? What a silly question.

I cry, a lot. I laugh, loudly. I love, hard.

The space I take up is not a fault, it is a privilege.

If I did not consume that space, I would not be me. I wouldn’t be able to love like I do. I wouldn’t care about the people and things that I care so much about.

To the people who think I am too much: I am just enough; go find less.

Who I Wanted To Be

Seven year old me had plans. Seven year old me thought I would go to college for years and become a dentist. Seven year old me thought I would fall in love and get married by 24. Have babies at 25. Buy a house, have 2 dogs, and live the life I dreamed of. Seven year old me really had it figured out. 

I’m 25 now. I have a degree, but I’m no dentist. I’m not married, I have no children, I don’t own a home. I’m not living the life I always dreamed of. But I’m living a life I’m proud of. 

I rent and have two kitties, no dogs. I’m learning what it’s like to navigate a broken heart. I constantly have to balance work and the military while trying to give my all to both of them. My family is an ever-changing story line and I have to keep turning the page to keep up. 

I am finally confident in who I am. While this isn’t the life I dreamed of, it’s a life I’m proud of. I’m proud of the strides I’ve made to face my anxiety. I’m proud of the growth I’ve seen in my job that I felt (and sometimes still feel) wildly unqualified for. I’m proud of the balance I have to keep up with work, the gym, my family, my friends, the military, my mental health, my pets, my home, my peace. I’m proud of the fact that I wear my heart on my sleeve, even if it burns me. 

Who I am today is not who I thought I wanted to be. Who I wanted to be took a different path a long time ago, and I hope she’s happy, too.

Losing

Losing myself is something I never thought would happen. 

I lose my patience in crowded places and my sense of surroundings after a couple stiff drinks. 

I lose my sunglasses like it’s my job and find myself ordering replacements more often than my bank account likes to see.

I lose my faith in humanity after reading headline after headline of mass shootings and political wars. 

Losing feeling, hope, and objects is part of the natural cycle of life but losing myself, who I am, is something I never anticipated. 

There were times I cried so hard I didn’t know where I’d find my next gasp of air. I would reach for anything around me in hopes it would soothe some of the heartbreak I was feeling and bring me back to a center. I couldn’t fathom the next moment I wouldn’t have a tear rolling down my face and the rise and fall of my chest wouldn’t feel like a chore. I was losing it. 

But losing myself these days has looked a little different. 

Now I am losing the parts of me that don’t benefit my future. I lost friends and family who refuse to support my growth. I lost my self-doubt when I looked in the mirror and told myself there is nothing I couldn’t accomplish. I lost myself so I could find myself again. 

Now I’ve found that losing patience and sunglasses and hope is still a normal part of life, but that losing myself is not always a bad thing. I have to lose parts of myself to find new parts that are worth my time and energy. Finding myself is also a natural cycle of life. 

So lose yourself over and over and over again, as long as you never stop finding yourself. 

Platonic Bond

Dedicated to Samanatha, Sailor, Cassidy, Abigail, Katelyn, Briana, and Allie. 

There is so much thrill behind the idea of friendship. Friendship can be healing and heartbreaking. You grow up and maybe even grow apart. Friendship is trial and error. 

It can start in kindergarten, when you both reach for the same blue crayon during arts and crafts. You show each other the family picture you colored, both to find that mom and dad aren’t next to each other in either of your drawings. You learn that their dad yells and they learn that your mom cries. You form an instant bond, even if you’re too young and naive to understand why. 

Before you know it, you’re on a high school basketball court, when you show up for the first day of practice and don’t know if your free throw will be as good as the girls in front of you. But you make it too, and she gives you a smile and fist bump as you head back in line for the next drill. 

These interactions are followed by late night sleepovers where you laugh hard and cry harder. You gush about the boy who asked her to prom, and rant about the one who didn’t ask you. You find that common dislike for the curfews your parents put in place and don’t understand why they just can’t trust you yet. 

You just walked across the stage, diploma in hand. You have three months before your late night sleepovers turn into countdowns to Christmas, when you’ll all be in the same city again. You all have your first job, first apartment, and first time realizing you might actually have to grow up. 

Now you’re 25. You all live in different states and different states of mind. You’re in school, another’s at work, and another just can’t seem to find her way. There is a part of your heart that wants to be 17 again before you all went your separate ways. Stealing liquor from your parents cabinet instead of trying to steal more time to balance your mental health, exercise, and time with family. Driving to the gas station for candy and popcorn rather than driving to your 9-5, because the rent won’t pay itself. Taking hours to decide the best shoes to match each other for the Friday night football game.

But you can’t go back. Now instead of holding her hand after a heartbreak, you hold her bouquet as she says “I do” to that same guy that asked her to prom. Neither of you roll your eyes at your mom for telling you to be home at 10pm because you’ve learned to love crawling in bed at 9pm. 

You dismiss the fights you had in the school hallway because she talked to the boy you used to like. She forgives the time you took her favorite sweatshirt before moving halfway across the country. You both can’t recall the crayon you grabbed in kindergarten when you first told each other your names. 

But we won’t forget those moments. Those moments are what brought us to now. To know how far we’ve come is healing and heartbreaking. We all grew up, but we’re lucky enough to have never grown apart.

Dinner

Sometimes I can’t make dinner. 

Happy hours with coworkers sounds like you drink your calories that night. 

Dinner dates with a new romance, so you’ll get a salad and devour snacks when you get home. 

Game nights with friends which call for pizza and soda that you sneak off the doorstep once the delivery drivers headlights disappear. 

Sports games for siblings means giving your parents puppy dog eyes for a concession hot dog, then nachos, then candy, all because you’re still their “little girl” and you don’t carry cash. 

There are movies to be seen which always pair well with elbow deep popcorn buckets and a soda cup that we all know is filled with a slushy... 

So, sometimes I can’t make dinner. 

Sometimes I can’t make dinner.

 Dinner requires food of all kinds from the grocery store that I, at times, can’t bring myself to walk into. 

Dinner requires getting off the couch, putting a pot on the stove, and staying focused long enough to make sure the water doesn’t boil over. 

Dinner means I have to have an appetite, because adding too many leftovers to the fridge on the fourth day in a row reminds you that you didn’t eat much last night, or the night before, or the night before, but you KNOW you’ll be hungry tomorrow. 

Sometimes I can’t make dinner because that means the dishes are dirty and the sink is full, which adds “Wash Dishes” to the To Do list that you already subconsciously avoid. 

Dinner to everyone else is another part of the day, to me it is a daunting task. 

So, sometimes I can’t make dinner.

Royal Flush

I wish there was some kind of warning about life. 

A caution. 

A disclaimer. 

That as you grow up, life deals you certain cards and there’s no option of sliding them back into the deck.Those are your cards now. 

How will you play them?

Moments shape our lives.

Happy moments.

Sad moments.

Scary moments.

Thrilling moments. 

No matter the category, they change the trajectory of our life, how we view ourselves, view others, view situations, and view different places. 

We learn from family, friends, and strangers that bad things will happen along the way, great things will happen along the way. 

But nobody is holding a sign at the very moments that the good, bad, and ugly are staring you in the face. 

I’ve had a lot of moments in my life that have shaped me into the person I am. To be in the place that I am and surrounded by the people I am. 

While I am grateful for where I am in this very moment in life, there were shaping events that I would’ve rather not been a person at all. To have been obsolete. 

I looked happy in the face and said to myself “thank you for being here with me”. 

I looked bad in the face and said to myself “what is this trying to teach me”.

I looked ugly in the face and said to myself “this can’t be happening to me”.

No warning.

No caution. 

No disclaimer. 

If I’ve learned one thing, it is to not look at the cards I’ve been dealt and plead to the dealer that I don’t know how to play the hand. 

Instead, I learn the game of poker and wait for the next royal flush.