take pause.

Life feels so utterly calm in the wake of the chaotic, mess of a world around us. I feel, for the first time in a very long time, peacefully content. I feel at ease- with myself, with my immediate surroundings, with the days as they come and as they go. Recently, I took a few small, promising personal steps toward healing and self preservation by visiting a therapist and doctor to work through some of the sharp things that creep around my edges: the anxiety, the sadness, the anger. And since I’ve faced those difficulties head on, I feel emboldened. I feel strong. Physically, mentally, emotionally.

There are, of course, things that I need to continue to wade through. Writing being one of them, and continuing to do it- even when I don’t think I have anything worthwhile to say, when the words come stunted and jilted, when my mind shimmies away from getting thoughts into words into sentences. I cocooned into busyness, into the beautiful comfort of routine, into tiredness. By doing that, allow myself to take a pause from exerting all of my feelings and musings into prose. There is something about these glowing, sun-soaked Pacific Northwest days that make me want to do everything but put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard.

There are so many moments I want to write about, or may streak down into a series of notes in my iPhone on the go. A morsel of time in a small, dark bar in the heart of Trinidad- listening to the voices and instruments of women who pulled consciousness and feeling from every edge of the room. A few Rojas streaked moments, intimate and rich and rare as warm, expensive rum. Or in the back yard of dear friends, the parched grass embedding indentations on the back of my thighs and the consoling sound of familiar voices drifting around me.

I will just have to keep trying to keep writing. So that I might harness some of these moments and have them when time begins to wash my memory of sharpness and color. None of this really makes sense and that’s going to have to be okay. My life isn’t a press release or a news article that can be folded into a few neat paragraphs with concise, clear, college-approved sentences. I’m just figuring out what I need to do to continue to feel, to evolve, to stay the same. I am overwhelmed with happiness, and I am afraid that I may lose it.