. On Encouragement .

"Are you feeling a bit shaken? Maybe stirred? Maybe fearful and doubtful and completely, utterly, wildly terrified? Good. Keep going."
- Victoria Erickson

You should wear that bikini. Or those swimming trunks. Or those socks with the bright yellow stars on them, or the sweater that your grand-momma made you in 1988. Put on the things you want, wear them, and feel them on your skin - nourishing and feeding a part of you that is just as necessary as the sunshine.

Nobody cares if your house is a mess. Nobody cares if your kids dragged out every single toy you own and nobody really gives one single shit if there are still dishes in your sink. People don't come to your house to see clean hardwoods - they come to your house to sit around your dining room table. Your kitchen table. Or even to put their feet up on your couch. They come to your house to listen to your stories and to witness pieces of your days. Nobody cares if you've never dusted your baseboards. 

It'll be okay. Whatever it is. Whether you're late to work or late to lunch. Whether you're screwing up every single day at your job, or whether you're so dang fed up at your job that you're about ready to throw your entire cup of pens at the next person that walks through your office door. It'll be okay if your mom is sick. Eventually. It'll be okay if you're holding the cold hand of the wrong someone at night. Eventually. It'll just ... be okay. You'll be okay. 

It's just a bad haircut, not a bad life.
It's just a bad enchilada combo - literally horrifying, but -- not a bad life.
It's just a bad meeting, not a bad life.
It's just a bad day.

Not a bad life.

If your child has decided to throw down in front of the frozen pizza at the local Wal-Mart, you will survive. If he's screaming because you won't buy him the dinosaurs, or because he feels like his shoe is too small, or if he feels like he has a hair on his finger (true story) - you'll make it. And sometimes you won't handle it with grace (totally been there), and that'll be okay, too. The people that are also in the frozen pizza aisle at Wal-Mart aren't staring and judging. They're commiserating. Because they've been there. 

​There will be days that you feel like you're crawling through some kind of canyon. Days that you feel like just won't ... end. There will be nights when you lay in bed and stare up at your ceiling and think of the ways to get out of whatever mess you're in. You will trip. Miss a stair. And maybe even in front of a crowd. 

You will lose your way. 

But you will find it again. 

You are sparkling and glittering and shiny and important. You are grace and joy and courage. And you are loved.

Even on the bad days. 

​xoxo, B.