every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

my ten year high school reunion was last november. i didn't go. i couldn't bring myself to reminisce through all those old memories. seeing familiar faces. the awkward small talk. the catching up. i didn't want to share myself with these people who knew me once upon a time. part of me feels like the same exact girl who sat in mr. simpson's economic class, played lacrosse, and carried around ziplock bags of cereal and my pathmark paddle brush in my back pack. (i still have that thing. it's indestructible). and another part of me feels almost unrecognizable. a version of myself so far removed from its original that i find it uncomfortable to maneuver around its presentation. i graduated high school with potential and a large portion of my brain tells me that i have failed to live up to that gift. like i should have been guaranteed greatness just because i once wore a crown or captained a team or read words off a page in front of my entire class. i didn't want to be the boring girl who didn't make anything of her life, and i didn't want to be this floundering woman who was doing things with no clear direction in life. and i felt a great deal like both of these people. i identified with their struggles. labeled myself with their pains.

i lost myself, some years back. i shut the door on a part of myself. maybe out of guilt or shame. maybe out of regret. but i locked it and turned my back and over the years i have piled and mounded my junk to block the entrance. i've stood in my skin, unrecognizable at times to even myself. they feel like separate people. entirely different audreys. i watched them make awful decisions and hold people off and hold people too close. and i realize now, miles later, that it wasn't that i didn't know myself. i have always been keenly self aware. it was that i found my intimate relationship with myself too overwhelming. i knew who i was and i disliked everything about her. i didn't think she was good enough or pretty enough or smart enough. and i hid her away in search of better models. i have spent years looking for that one thing that will complete my whole. compared myself to unofficial irrational standards. anything that would make people stick. that would keep people from wanting to leave. whatever would make me enough, whatever would make me worth their time.

it makes me really sad to write these words. to see this broken girl, scared and reaching out to anyone who would pause in passing. but something inside me has softened over the past few months. i can see her in a different light. all the tension that existed, the urge to slap her, to shake her senseless, to reprimand her for her weakness, has dissipated. perhaps i've finally experienced grace, in practice instead of just theory. i'm learning to let it all go. to embrace the woman i have become. to hold the girl i have always been and to leave room for the lovely lady that is yet to be.

that is what i have learned from my months away from charlotte. removed from the noises that creep inside my head. immersed in family time and time alone. left only to the care of myself, for myself. that looking out for myself doesn't make me selfish. i learned that i am capable of making wise decisions. that i can entertain myself for days on end. that even separate from all of life's daily distractions, i am someone i enjoy being with. i can be present and not want to run. i can relax. i can just be. after three months on the road i have come to this conclusion: i am hilarious. i am adventurous. i am awesome.
and maybe a little bit stinky.

i had dinner with an old friend last night. someone who knew me way back when. someone who used to think i was pretty rad. and i found myself in this amazing space where i didn't have to be anyone other than myself. i didn't have to try and strive and fight the flow. i didn't have to be afraid. my sister was at home waiting for me to quiz her for a french test, we had spent the day in the local parks. walking and playing in the creek with the marley dog. i had more than survived the day. it was a pleasure to be in her company. and as i regaled tales of my travels and college and life i found myself laughing at absurd moments. i was still separate from the girl in the stories. i have some healthy distance from those experiences and i can discuss them with more care and compassion. i'm learning to love myself. and that is enough.

Sitting with my past, i am content with my present. and looking forward to the future.

i have one main rule for myself these days: don't hit the baby. it means don't hurt the baby that is me. don't beat up on the little one who i am learning to hold and comfort, the one i'm trying to love no matter how raggedy she looks. it's sort of a code, a shorthand of the heart.
this is what i come home to. i do not have to crawl across the desert on my knees. i do not have to swim through turbulent oceans to stop drownings. all i have to do is watch and pray and love what i love. i can hold the baby and not hurt her. i can hold them all and not hurt them. not save them, not hurt them, just hold them.
-little alters everywhere