What February Has Taught Me

This month has been a dichotomy for me in every way. It was 70 degrees a few weeks ago - unseasonably warm. And this week? We're experiencing nearly record-breaking cold, shocking us and reminding me that, as much as I think I do, I don't control anything at all.

The month also started with a lot of creative frustration for me. I felt like I had all of these ideas piling up, like water getting stuck in a dam, but I couldn't get anything out. I would start to write, but I couldn't finish posts. My journal entries were bland. I felt creatively stifled, as if I was going to explode if I didn't get something out soon. I even signed up for a pottery class in Decatur next week, in an effort to self soothe and draw out something, anything.

And then? Just like the weather changed overnight; my dam broke. Suddenly my mind is racing with things I want to share. I can't get anything down fast enough. My inbox is piled high with ideas coming to me - write about this and try that and connect with so and so on that. I can't keep up with the way my creative juices are flowing.

So how did it happen?

I'd like to say that dam just broke, unable to hold it back anymore. But I'd be downplaying it. This is much bigger than a little writer's block and, instead, me finally taking the steps I want to take creatively and emotionally to move forward on a few big bucket life items.

The breakthrough was a combination of love and support for people around me, my quiet times and a lot of big realizations. Here's what this month taught me as I tried to uncap my creativity:

1. That letting people into your life is scary, but beautiful. It allows them to support you and catch you when you fall. It allows them to help you when your dam is jammed - to unstick it, move you in the right direction and help you grow.

2. That when we do things halfway, we get half of the return. I was operating with one foot in, one foot out on a few decisions. You have to commit or you start to miss out.

3. That investing our energy into many things means the output is divided into many parts. When we invest our energy into one thing, it has more power to go further.

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4. That slowing down isn't weak. In fact, it makes you stronger and more fit for battle.

5. That community fills us up and we are not, not, not meant to live in silos.

Stay tuned for updates on my next creative endeavor soon! Thank you for your continued support as a reader community. For building me up, helping me navigate things and for taking time to read my creative output.

Cheers to February!

What Is Taking Up the White Space in Your Life?

Last year, I took an InDesign certification course at Emory, which sent me in to an insatiable tizzy of wanting to design things. I took my first project to a friend who is a designer and asked her what she thought. One of the positive things she told me was that I had a good understanding of the importance of white space.

For a long time, white space was thought of as wasted space in design. But today, it's considered to be essential - it makes things easier to read, less overwhelming and creates balance.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the white space in life. It seems many of us consider it to be wasted time; we have to fill up every inch of our lives so we feel like we are performing to the best of our abilities. But, as I've slowed down in 2015, I've noticed that having more white space in my life has made me more effective.

I feel less overwhelmed and more balanced. And, in turn, I've had time to do things more effectively - from work to time with friends to cooking and all sorts of things in between - I'm not just pounding the pavement to get by.

In certain seasons of life, I've found myself swirling, as if I was on a Merry Go Round and I was trying to reach out to grab a hand or a tree or anything nearby to slow it down a little bit. During one of those seasons, I wrote myself an email with notes I took from a sermon on rest:

I don’t want to swirl with the environment around me – I want to learn to find rest and calm on my own. I cannot wait for my environment to calm, when, in fact, rest has nothing to do with the environment around me, but instead is is contingent upon the Lord within me. In the quiet, I will find wholeness, even when I feel broken by the pace. 

Finding rest, peace and clarity comes when we stop swirling and create white space.

What is taking up the white space in your life? I go through phases where I can't even figure out what is sapping my time, but I finish every day feeling like there wasn't enough of it. In those times, I have to audit myself: Did I waste time online? Did I make unnecessary to do lists with tasks that didn't really have to get done today? Did I do things that give me a false sense of worth or earning, simply to feel the high of it? Am I working too much? Do I need to reevaluate my commute, my exercise habits? Did I take on too many volunteer projects, or offer to help too many people with tasks?

What nonessentials have I put into my white space? There will inevitably be seasons of chaos in life. Sometimes, we have to run hard and fast. But, if we're constantly  living that way, it's too much. Life isn't meant to be a total grind. It's meant to be lived in community, pouring into ourselves and the people we love, pursuing our purpose and passion. It's meant to have white space, so we have room to doodle and play. It's meant to be enjoyed and lived well.

Living with white space this winter has taught me I'm at my best when I have it. And now? I'm protecting it fiercely and evaluating everything I'm putting into the margins.

What's taking up your white space today? What can you erase to give yourself a little more wiggle room? 

happiness this week

1. Still on a high from my trip to visit Allie in LA. We had the best time catching up and I loved seeing her new world. It's such a good feeling seeing your friends create and grow into new lives. And, it's lovely getting to visit them in warm, fun cities. 

While I was there, she let me wear her jumpsuit. And now I really want one for myself. :) Also, it felt wo.nd.er.ful to wear sandals!

2. Loving this mashup Allie sent me. After you listen, click on the "Your Lips Are Moving" one, too. It's just as good!

3. So pumped for this weekend. Melly and I are having a girls love brunch Saturday morning for our friends. 

4. Also so very excited for dinner with Chris Saturday night. I went rogue and requested no restaurant (I don't like fixed menus and I really don't love tiny food). I can't wait to find out what he has planned. 

5. Feeling a little nervous (but mostly happy) about getting my hair cut tomorrow. Right now, my plan is to cut a good bit off. But I almost always say that and then rarely make much of a change. I will keep you posted!

20 Things I Hope I Never Forget About my 20s

I was recently talking with a friend who is trying to find himself right now - he's fresh out of college and feels like he's been smacked in the face with reality. He's far from his friends, his job is hard and budgeting is even harder.

Nobody warned me, is what it seems like he wants to yell from the mountaintops with a megaphone. 

Watching him sit there - just a few years younger than me but a world away - made me think about what the last five years have looked like. I spend a lot of time giving advice to 20-somethings, because it can be a bit of a siloed decade. And I believe if we link arms with one another as we wade through it, we will grow and learn so much more.

I hope that alongside that, though, is my message that this decade is beautiful. 

We have a tendency to want to race through it because the growing pains it brings are real. But, it's important we don't do that. It's a period of trial and error, but it's also a wonderful decade, where you get to make new friends, launch your career, learn how to navigate post-grad relationships and so much more. There are beautiful things about it I hope I never forget. So, inspired by Laura Marie's post:

20 things I hope I never forget about my 20s:

1. The feeling of signing my first job offer letter. Realizing I was actually, totally employable and going to have a grown up job.

2. The first payroll direct deposit. It was like magic and felt like so.much.money.

3. Disassembling my bed to load it in the U-Haul as I moved to Atlanta, then saying, "Wait. I can't do this. I need my bed to stay in Indiana." Because, as much as I wanted to be, I wasn't ready to not have a bed at my parents' house. And that's OK. I might not ever be really ready for that. 

4. Rushing around Pier 1 with my mom to buy things to, in her words, "cuteify" my first apartment. 

5. Coming back to Atlanta from a wedding in Birmingham to find that my parents had finished setting up my new apartment for me. Somehow, they made it feel like home while I was away. 

6. The first time I drove somewhere without getting lost (or a GPS). This city is big and crazy, but I found a grocery store and dry cleaner and, heck, even made a bucket list. 

7. Learning how to keep something alive. For some people this is a child and others it is a puppy. For me? It is plants. It might not seem important to those with children and animals, but, to me, it meant something.

8. Making new friends and realizing how much we needed one another. There's something about being alone in a new city that can bind you together. It's like being away at college for the first time - there is a beautiful, productive neediness about it. Also: crying with them for the first time. It got real, real quick. 

9. Having my family visit and showing them my favorite places and realizing I had become a local.

10.  Coming home from a few really, really bad dates and calling my friends from home and giving them the download: yes, he called me Britney. Yes, he wanted to take tequila shots. Yes, he drove me by his ex's house. And being so, eternally grateful that you have them on the other end of the phone to spare you from post-date loneliness. 

11. The feeling of a really good first date: when you catch one another's eye and your stomach flips and you know there will be a second.

12. Visiting friends in their new cities and getting to see the life they are building. Being so proud of them and their bravery.

13. Weddings that were basically reunions.

14. Buying my new car. Kind of wanting to puke when I signed that dotted line, but also feeling so proud. 

15. Making coffee for the first time. It just felt so grown up. Heck, yes, I filtered this stuff!

16. Finding a good church community. It's amazing what kind of loneliness it can alleviate. 

17. Buying my very first Christmas tree. It was so sparkly and happy! 

18. Learning to use bleach, wash wood floors and all of the other house hacks you can only discover by doing. 

19. Budgeting for the first time and being overcome with the feeling of: I actually saved money! It actually worked!

20. Coming back from a trip and realizing for the first time that Atlanta felt like home.