Author: Hattie Zubie

I was raised in Chelsea, Massachusetts and am the youngest of five girls. I started writing when I was 12 years old as an escape from an abusive father. I came out when I was 25 and within a couple years entered into a relationship with a woman I would marry and then divorce. My writing reflects the difficulties I face with my parents, once violent and drug addicted, still emotionally neglectful. I also share openly how difficult it was to be in an unhealthy, unsuccessful marriage. I feel my best when I am outdoors, on a road trip, hiking or mountain biking. I am constantly learning what I want in life and simultaneously yearning for something greater.
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A Dangerous Current

You are a dangerously tempting current 

Swimming with you pulls me too far out

Swimming against you is impossible 

And the moon will only light the way 

Until the clouds roll in

And they will roll in

I believed in you until I didn’t

Trust was unwavering until it wasn’t

You were a soft place to land

Until you turned to stone

Cracks in your pavement should have been a warning

There’s been trouble here before

But I had a steady place to plant my feet

And your eyes were kind

I remember when you asked me

Will you do whatever it takes

You asked me

My response was my punishment

I let go of the wind 

And held onto your coattails

You sang songs to lure me in

And then scolded me for singing along

You stand next to me now

There’s a lot behind your eyes

That I can’t see anymore

I hear words in a language I can’t speak

You’re at a distance I will never reach

I wouldn’t dare take the chance

You’re in a world that does not look safe to me

Dark shadows fly around you

And I pray they don’t get too close

But I fear they have already gotten what they came for

You were the sunshine

You were warm and all encompassing 

But you were broken in a way I couldn’t understand

Your bits and pieces too heavy for me to lift

Your cracks so big I fell in

Landed in the middle of the ocean

And when I finally got sight of the shore

The current kept pushing me back out

And back out

And back out

You knew I would tire out

You knew I wasn’t strong enough to keep going

So I let my flailing arms and legs rest

And I laid on my back

Felt the water tickle my ears and sides of my face 

As I rose and sank with the motion of the water

And just as I gave in

I was set free 

You say my poetry is too depressing

Here is a happy ending for you

I am more in love with myself than

I ever was with you

I met someone so trustworthy

So loyal

So uplifting

So passionate

She isn’t condescending

Or judgmental

She is a much better lover than you

And she will never abandon me for someone else

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The Liberating Divorce

You know what’s amazing and liberating about getting a divorce? Realizing you just spent the last 6 years trying to be loved by someone and now the only person that you want to love you is YOU. It is the most free I have ever felt. And honestly, the most loved.  I believe it is something that goes for the most part unnoticed, the losing of yourself for a relationship. It’s not entirely conscious. But there were definitely moments I had throughout my marriage where I thought, this isn’t what I want to do, this doesn’t feel right, I’m not speaking up, am I sacrificing too much? am I giving too much away? am I losing myself? I battled a little over how I let that happen. How did I, a woman who has always been independent and strong willed, let herself go like that? How did I give myself up so easily?

I started to believe I needed my marriage. I needed it more than I needed myself. And that is bullshit. Nobody needs anybody. What I needed was to re-center myself or maybe I was never that centered to begin with. I struggled my whole life with depression. I grew up in a violent, abusive home. My parents both dealt with drug addictions. I watched my father abuse my mother and my sisters and I watched my mother take it and allow it in silence. I was never shown the love I needed from either of my parents. So it has taken me a while to truly gather myself into what I would consider the best version of who I could be. I haven’t had the best examples. I never would have guessed it would take the end of what I thought was my most significant relationship in order for me to find that. But when you really give something your all, and I truly and literally gave it my all, only to watch it dissolve right in front of your face, it wakes you the fuck up. 

For the first time in my life I am adventurous and I’m adventurous on my own. For the first time in my life I am truly confident and I’m confident on my own. For the first time I am happy, content, grounded, centered and fulfilled. I feel less alone than I ever have and more connected than I ever have. I am paying attention to my body and listening to what it needs, and how it feels. I am honoring my emotions. I am nurturing friendships that have been neglected. I am so present, and aware. When my marriage ended I felt like something had been taken away from me, but now I realize I have received more than I lost. The end of my marriage was hard and it was difficult but it would be a shame to focus on that and miss out on all the beauty that is around me and within me. 

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Learning after love

I learned something new about myself this weekend that I have to share because I found it so profound. Now, bare with me as I am jumping ahead and skipping over some pretty juicy details about my life but I promise I will circle back around at some point in the near future.

I was invited to go hiking with a client of mine, his girlfriend and her son. They were nice enough to let me tag along because I was about to go on a solo hike for the very first time that I probably wasn’t really prepared for. I am solo because I recently lost my hiking partner. No, not in some tragic, off the cliff, hiker sort of way. I’m getting a divorce. I haven’t really hiked with anyone but my wife. We got serious about hiking on our road trip and we were great hiking partners, we both kept a fast pace (hers albeit faster than mine), we didn’t waste our breathe chatting the whole way, and she was fearless, which helped me with my fear of heights/falling.  I accomplished a great deal when it came to my fear of heights. I hiked trails I would never have even considered before. There were moments I started to panic, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, but she would always backtrack a little to come help me. She was supportive and encouraging.

Despite pushing through my fear and hiking, the fear was still there, and it was strong. But, it was ok because my wife was there to help me. I had to go, I had to keep up because we were doing this together. What I found on the hike I went on over the weekend was that most of the fears that were very recently still impacting my hiking ability, weren’t showing their ugly faces. Standing on a steep slope, kind of fine. Looking up while on a steep slope, also kind of fine. Looking down and/or out at the view, also kind of fine. Standing near the ledge at the summit, pretty friggin fine. Don’t get me wrong, I had nerves. But the fear did not take the front seat the way it always did.

So, what’s the difference? I was doing it for the wrong person. I had been pushing through my fear of heights/falling for my wife. I wanted her to want to hike with me. I was doing it so SHE could be proud of me, I was doing it so SHE could encourage me. I was doing it to show HER that I was a strong person. I was doing it to feel HER support. I was doing it because SHE thought that I could. I was doing it so SHE could see that I was becoming less afraid. But all that did was keep my fears at bay. It didn’t get rid of them, it just allowed me to function along with them. In a weird way, it made my “fear conquering” less authentic. I think that within the relationship I had with my wife, the constant need to prove I could conquer my fear, resulted in me not conquering it at all. I don’t think I ever would have. But without her, without looking for her support, her encouragement, her fearlessness, I had to have it for myself.  When I didn’t have her hand to grab on to, to help pull me up, I had to get up by myself. I had to be all of that on my own. And I was. All of that was right there, within me, all along.

My therapist put it in a way I could really make sense of, a way I could visualize- I was centered. My center of gravity was aligned. I wasn’t reaching, leaning, or looking outside of myself (towards Sarah) which would literally put my center of gravity, off center. I was grounded.

Sometimes you do not realize you are being held back until you are set free. Love yourself first. Trust yourself first. Be proud of yourself first. Support yourself first. Encourage yourself first. Challenge yourself first. Push through for you.  Hike because YOU love to hike. And conquer your fears because YOU know you can. Do not spend your life waiting on someone else’s cue. Be your own spark, your own ignition, your own compass. You can begin, you can push through and you can find yourself, fearlessly, on the other side.

 

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New Eyes

It’s a new start

You’ve had them before

You’re okay at them

You can look with new eyes

Try them on

See how they fit

A little snug at first

But you will break them in

Things will look brighter

You will see more clearly

You will see details you never noticed

Colors you didn’t know where there

People you never saw before

Voices you never heard

Sounds, even the quiet ones,

Will be crisper, louder, less staticky

Maybe you might find you can breathe easier over time

Your lungs will expand more

Breathe in more on the inhales

Breathe out more on the exhales

It’s a new start 

But you have old friends with you

Faces you will recognize

There in the mirror, there’s one

Say hello again

Reintroduce yourself 

Be kind to her 

Make her feel welcome

Show her around

Give her comfortable clothes

Maker her a cup of tea

Talk to her, like old times

Like you did when it was just the two of you

Hold her hand 

Tell her she is beautiful 

Tell her she is not alone despite being left

Tell her everything around her is safe

When you build a wall

You build it brick by brick

It’s sturdy but it isn’t permanent 

You can take one brick away at a time

Leaving just a small square to look through

And through that square, everything will look closer

Even the far away things

Things like happiness

Things like strength

Things like the future

Things like forgiveness

Things like healing

Speak loud if she can’t hear you

Or softly if she cowers away

Look straight at her

Make eye contact

She can see you but she needs to be guided

These are new eyes

And she hasn’t been down this road for a while

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Falling in love with Mountain Biking

People who have known me most of my life would agree that I have not always been the most athletic person. Actually, that statement makes it seem as though occasionally I was athletic, but lets’ face it, I was not. I played basketball in elementary school on a team consisting of five girls, plus a sub, until eventually the sub quit. We had to beg the coach to let us play without her. I rode my bike around the block I lived on, in the parking lot next door to my house and under the overpass down the street.

When my family moved to a new town and I entered middle school, I became paralyzed with shyness. I literally got D’s and  F’s in P.E. because I wouldn’t participate in playing any games that required me to run, hit, or throw. In highschool I toyed with the idea of joining track because it appeared to be what most of my friends were doing but I never followed through. After highschool I joined a gym and while I was running on a treadmill one day, and a guy I graduated with came up to me and said he couldn’t believe I was running.  So, it was clear, I wasn’t the sporty type.

About a month into the road trip that my wife and I took, we realized we were in major need of bikes. Hiking and biking seemed like the things to do when you are exploring cool, popular hiking and biking destinations. Duh! So we went to a bike shop in Helena, Montana. I was excited to own a bike, I just wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with it. I had not ridden a bike since I was about ten years old. Unless you count the brief encounter I had in my late teens/early twenties. I rode a friends bike around the parking lot of the condo he lived in. I was embarrassed by how clumsy I felt. I was unbalanced, awkward and afraid I was going to fall. Turns didn’t come naturally, I felt too high off the ground and once I picked up speed, I was done! So when we walked out of that store with our mountain bikes you can imagine my apprehension. I hadn’t even admitted to my wife how long it had been and how bad my last experience was.

We took the bikes back to our campground and went for a ride. It is hard to describe the feeling I felt riding that bike around. I was not the same fearful, timid person I was before. Hell, I just quit my old life and was living on the road, traveling the country. I was in friggin Montana and now, riding a bike.  It was the most fun I had had since I could remember. Sure, I was a little rusty and shaky at times but my prominent feeling wasn’t fear, it was absolute delight. Any trepidation I had, I rode through and it went away. I didn’t want to get off my new bike. It was like I was a little kid again but it was better. I felt free, happy, and excited, but this time I had something to compare it to.

I love when the mundane things, the things that get easily taken for granted become extraordinary moments in life. Riding a bike is something we all learn to do as kids. And then there’s that saying about learning to ride a bike; once you learn, you never forget. They don’t say, you’ll never forget but if you wait too long you might be so scared that you vow to never get on one again. You just assume it will be easy. You assume you can do it. I spent life NOT assuming I could do anything. In fact, I assumed I couldn’t do most things. I let the unknown become the un-do-able. Clearly and thankfully, that’s changed. Throwing yourself in the deep end can do that to you.

Moab, Utah is one of the best places to mountain bike in the country. There are hundreds of trails from beginner to advanced. We were not advanced riders at the time; we didn’t even have the right kind of mountain bikes for the trails we decided to ride. We had “hardtails,” meaning there was no rear suspension. So when you ride over a rock or land a jump, you land hard. Your ass comes down on the seat like a ton of bricks and if you are lucky it will stay on the seat. If you aren’t lucky you sort of bounce off of it and the nose of the seat jams into your inner thigh or more sensitive areas I need not mention. I had no shin pads or any pads for that matter and I was wearing running sneakers.

We were wise to upgrade our pedals, which provided better grip from the little metal pegs that stick to the bottom of your shoes, except not so wise to not upgrade our footwear as running sneakers have nothing to grip so my feet kept slipping off and I would get a flying pedal to my shin. This left me with lovely little puncture wounds where the pegs dug in. It also left me with marks on the back of my calves from when my foot would slip off the front of the pedal causing the pedal to rip up the back of my calve. Keep in mind I was wearing pants, the damn pegs went right through my pants!

 

While my ability improved the more we rode, I still managed to fall or slam into things frequently. But we were riding on harder trails and I was getting better and better. Even though I was bruised and scraped up, I never wanted to stop riding. I just got right back on and kept pedaling. Me, the girl who got scared of falling in a flat, paved parking lot was zooming through single track trails (it was more of a slow zoom, I won’t get ahead of myself), climbing up and gliding down slick rock. Every decent feels three times as steep when you’re looking at it from atop a bike. Scraping knuckles and elbows on trees and falling into thorn bushes. I didn’t give a shit. I loved what I was putting my body through.  Physically, it was the hardest thing I had ever done.

We would ride for hours. There were definitely things that scared me or made me nervous. There were times I had to get off and walk my bike. Sometimes, when I couldn’t make it up something, I would get off and go back and try again. It might have taken five attempts, but eventually I would make it up.  My thighs burned like never before and it would feel impossible to push through but I would. At the end of every ride my legs would be wobbling. My palms would ache from gripping the handles. And I don’t have to tell you how my ass felt. Devastatingly, our bikes were stolen in California but after mourning their loss we got ourselves new ones, with dual suspension.

Despite my fear and lack of athletic ability I became a mountain bike rider and I loved it. My family could hardly believe their eyes when we would send them pictures.  I don’t think anyone would believe it. I could hardly believe it myself.

For the first time in my life I felt powerful and strong and I felt fearless. Being fearless for me didn’t mean not having fear, it meant having it but pushing through it. It meant having fear and using that fear as fuel for determination. It meant being afraid to do something and doing it anyway. For the first time in my life I felt fearless, like I could do anything and like I was free to have fun while I was doing it!

 

 

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The Love of a Motorhome

This afternoon we drove the motorhome around for a little while. It had been sitting all winter at the next door neighbors (they were gone for the winter and let us store it in their driveway). It was time to move it to its new spot and make sure it still had some life in it. It has been empty for months, alone, bare but not forgotten. It could be seen from our yard and every time I left the house I looked over at it and said hello. I wanted to make sure it knew we were coming back for it.

We drove it only 30 minutes or so, sitting in the passenger seat, as I usually did, brought many feelings with it. I could barely get myself to look over my shoulder, not wanting to acknowledge its emptiness. I miss this home. That is what it was, a home for over a year. Our first home we bought together. But it was much more than just that. It provided more than shelter, more than a way of getting around. It even smelled of emptiness. It smelled cold, damp, and musty. It smelled like a camper, like when we first bought it. Its walls were stripped of magnets, no cork boards pinned with pictures and notes. No keys dangling from hooks. No pots banging around in cabinets. No colorful pillows on the couch. A naked mattress on the bed. Our clothes were not in the closets and drawers. It was hollow. And it felt hollow. I started to feel as though I could cry. I missed it so much.

It is hard for me describe what living in that tiny space did for me. It gave me so much, I feel grateful to it. There is a connection like I have with no other space I’ve known. Initially, I admit I was a little afraid of it. I had rarely ever been in one except for checking out my father-in-law’s when he would come to visit. So owning one and living in one was somewhat scary. It was unfamiliar. There was a lot to learn and we didn’t exactly give ourselves a ton of time to do that. So, at first there were many holy shit moments. Like, holy shit I just bought an RV and holy shit this thing is huge.

The first weekend we ever spent in it was a test run. We spent two nights at an RV park on the Cape. We had no clue how anything worked, what anything should look like/sound like/smell like. And in just a month or so we would be living in it full time. It was also a way of testing the water as far as space went. Meaning, the lack of it. What would it be like physically living in this tiny rectangle for an extended period of time. Would I hate it? Feel claustrophobic? Keep bumping into things? Would it literally feel like I was living in a shoe box? After we hooked up the water hose, sewer hose and power cord we had some time to just chill out, have a beer and eat some snacks.

There is one moment that stands out to me. I remember as if it happened yesterday. There I was, sitting on the toilet (whose pedal flushing system I was leery of) going pee in the bathroom which was also the bedroom (unless you closed the accordian-like partition door). I was looking around, at the cabinet door which would serve as our closet, the little sink across from me, the bed which was bigger than the one we slept in at our condo, the fridge which could be seen through the doorway to the left. I was so happy I could have cried. I believe I said to myself out loud, this is your new home, you’re gonna live in this. I could not wait to have all our stuff in there and live in it for good. I absolutely, without a doubt, loved it.

I continued to love it. And it continued to kind of scare the shit out of me, because we were learning as we went. Every time we set off to a new destination I was nervous. Checking the side mirrors to make sure nothing was flapping around or little doors were swinging open. Turning the rear camera on to double check the Jeep was still attached and the tires were rolling. Trying to decipher between a tire about to blow or a bumpy road (harder than you would imagine). Hoping a pebble wouldn’t hit the propane tank and cause an explosion. Every little thing was nerve racking, because we were driving around a friggin house! With a Jeep towed behind it! We were in charge of 50 feet of moving vehicles. It might as well have been a tractor trailer truck. It was insane and amazing.

We could go wherever we wanted to and be home when we got there. We had our own bed to sleep in whether we were in a campground, RV park, truck stop, rest stop or Walmart parking lot. I felt so safe inside that shoebox. It sheltered me through my fears and nerves, rain and lightening.  It was my cocoon. It was there when I stared in awe at the Teton mountain range, when I cleaned up bloody legs from a day of mountain biking. It was there when I could barely move after a full day of hiking and then missing the shuttle bus in Zion National Park; we had to walk an additional 8 miles in pitch dark back to the visitor center. It was my house and my car all in one. It kept me in place and on the move. It was like magic. Like a best friend that you have no matter what, a pet that’s always happy to see you. It was everything for me and it did it all so well. Never complained, never rebelled. The peace I felt sitting at the kitchen table (which was also in the living room) drinking a cup of tea after dinner or having coffee in the morning was unbeatable. I wanted for nothing.

We left behind so much and found that we still brought too much with us. Most of the clothing we brought we didn’t even touch, the extra “just in case” stuff sat unused in bins. What was unexpected to me and what felt so incredible was realizing how much I didn’t need. Things that I held on to for years. Things I thought I cared about and loved. Things I thought I would miss. I needed none of it, wanted none of it, I didn’t even think about any of it. Clothes, shoes, knickknacks, coffee mugs, makeup, hair products, fancy kitchen gadgets. None of it fit, none of it had a place and none of it mattered. I was the happiest I had ever been. In that small shoebox of a house on wheels, I was the happiest I had ever been.

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Fluid

I am moving through objects
Objects are moving through me
I am in constant motion
Always alive
Breathing
Beating
Blinking
Flowing
Arteries of expectation luring me
Passageways of chance and potential
Nothing is truly as it seams
Figures shifting
I am open
Like flood gates
The rush of possibility surging like
a river into the ocean
Something brought me here
To this intersection of past, present, future and wanting
But the reason hides like a coward under
disguises made of familiar faces
Beasts of burden
I flow through you like a stream of consciousness
There is no ending here
Only seamless continuity
And if I close my eyes
I can give in
Loosen my muscles
Limp limbs
And let myself be taken
Swept up in the flood
I am floating
I am fluid
I remind myself, I am included in this transient world
There is nothing to be afraid of here
These walls are transparent
I was not pushed here
I was not dragged by own misgivings
I remind myself
I am floating
I am fluid
This is my estuary

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Rewind, this was NOT the plan.

What happens when you’re an adult and you still have no clue what you are doing with your life? You are at a standstill. You have no vision, no goal, no clear path. All you know is that you are not happy and you want to be fullfilled. How do you avoid feeling like up until this point you have wasted your time? And not just time or even valuable time but your LIFE. How do you avoid feeling like you have wasted your life?

You look at people you know who are happy and content. For some people it’s genuine. I think for many, it is content with being unhappy. There is a difference between being truly happy and having happy moments. Can you ever be truly happy with every aspect of your life? Can you love your downtime, work, family, friends, and social life? Can you be satisfied with your physical appearance and be mentally stable? And on top of that be overall healthy? Do all of these things have to be top notch in order for someone to truly, really, genuinely be 100% happy? You could argue that it isn’t possible for all of that. Something inevitably goes wrong or falls short. So, the answer is, you need to be happy despite what isn’t perfect. It is no easy feat, but it is possible. Anything is possible.

Decisions are mandatory in life. You are making them everyday, all day. You decide to wake up, you decide to have coffee over tea, you decide to put gel in your hair, shave your legs(or not). You decide what to take for lunch, to order out for dinner, to finally get in bed before ten o’clock.  You make decisions that consistently impact your day, your general mood, and your life. And you make them without actually knowing what the outcome will be, without even necessarily thinking of what it will be. However, you probably know what you want it to be.  You have coffee, because it will help keep you more alert on your drive into work. But you get to work only to find you are jittery, and your heart is racing. Oh well! What are you going to do? Regret that you decided to have coffee? Beat yourself up over the fact that you didn’t think about the potential to feel over caffeinated?  Question, why did I do that? Why didn’t I just have the tea? What was I thinking? This was such a horrible decision, no good has come out of it at all!  No, chances are you don’t do any of those things. You don’t go back and try to analyze precisely what went into your decision of having coffee and what you thought would happen verses what did happen. There is a chance you don’t even associate your jitters with the coffee. You could go all day thinking you just felt weird. Either way, you go about your day, maybe drink a few extra glasses of water.

Yet, when you make more serious decisions in life and the outcome is not what you hoped for, you do exactly that. You dwell, you regret, you question. Nobody makes a decision because they think something bad might come of it. You are always making them because you think it is right, better, smarter. It might be the harder way but you still make the decision. You decide, in hopes that it was the right choice. You decide to move across the country for school or a new job. You might get there, not get into the school, or lose the job after a month. You might get there and realize the dream job isn’t so dreamy after all. In addition, you have a falling out with family, and get into a car accident. It would feel as though as soon as you got there, everything went wrong. And you would feel like you made the wrong decision. You would be right about one thing, and that would be that things turned out differently. But that doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice. The jitters are from the coffee, but not from your decision to have the coffee.

When you make a decision, you make it with intention. When you make a decision, you have to commit. You commit to it, you stand behind it, you have faith in it. You have faith in yourself. It’s not a game show, you didn’t choose door number three and get slimed. But if it were, and you did, you would go home and wash it off. When things do not go the way you thought, you go with it. You change with it, you adjust. You make it what you want it. You don’t sulk over how everything sucks, this isn’t what you wanted, and now what are you going to do? Nothing is ever certain, we don’t have a way to see into the future or to know how things are going to turn out. But we make decisions despite that. We have to. We don’t avoid, we can’t go back and change anything. We have to look forward. Always look forward. And tomorrow you have half-caff.

 

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The Real World

When I told my family that I had decided to quit my job, sell my condo, buy a motorhome, and travel around the country for as long as my savings account would allow, they were surprised to say the least. There was excitement and disbelief. It was all very positive. This is so exciting! I can’t believe you’re doing this! How long will you be gone? Where are you going? Can we visit you along the way? They knew my wife and I might come back or we might have found someplace we wanted to live. My father lacked a little of the excitement. He was perhaps more…skeptical? He’s old school and traditional. Extremely old school and traditional. You might ask how old school and traditional can he be with a gay daughter? And you would be right to question that but that’s for a whole other post. His mentality was kind of like, Okay, go for it, have fun, be careful, and when you decide to come back to the real world we will be here and hopefully your jobs will too. He didn’t really get it.

What the hell is the real world anyway? And why isn’t what I was planning on doing a part of it? Why has life been summed up to work, owning a home, starting a family, student loans, retirement accounts, and having “fun” on the weekends? I don’t get it. And I don’t like it. Actually, I loathe it. That is not a life to me and I refuse to make it MY real world. After traveling and living on the road I knew that despite where we needed up, we were not going to fall victim to ordinary life again. In my soul and gut I knew I could not possibly accept it, not after being exposed to the beauty of freedom and the joy of living a life I never imagined was possible. But how?

There is just no getting around it, you need money. At least I believe you do anyway. Because I don’t want to live on the streets or eat food out of dumpsters. That’s not exactly the alternative lifestyle I’m imagining. But I believe you can live a life where you get to do the things that give you the most joy. I believe you should make money specifically to do those things. I spent all of my twenties making and saving money for things that gave me no joy. I bought a condo that stressed me out, I bought a brand new car that got me to and from work every damn day. And I was saving money because I thought that I should. I was saving it for the future but for what in the future? A nicer, bigger condo? A newer, more expensive car? A retirement account to be thankful for in 40 years? Those things might give some people joy, and if they do then great! By all means, save away. I am not saying there is anything wrong with it, but I was doing those things and I was miserable. I never did anything I wanted to. I never went back to trapeze class because it was too expensive even though I thought about it all the time. I never took days off of work to go for hikes, or go to museums or to the beach. I never enjoyed nature even though I felt it pulling at my heart strings.

You know, it’s funny. People always say, Wow, what a dream! I wish I could do that! And my response is, YOU CAN! People said to me, How could you have left your family? I could never leave my family! And my response is, YES YOU COULD! I truly believe the thing that made me leave and pursue my ideal world was passion. If anyone isn’t doing it, they don’t want it bad enough. I had such passion and fire inside of me, if I didn’t leave I felt I literally would have died. Of course I knew I would miss my family if I left, but the alternative was a much darker outcome for me. And what I discovered was so profound. It was something I was never going to get by staying put just so that I could make it to Sunday dinner at my parents.

I discovered MY real world. And it did not involve living in a house with a massive mortgage, owning a nice car, having twenty pairs of jeans, new bathing suits every summer, working like a slave, stressing over bills, or waiting until the friggin weekend to do what I wanted to do. I discovered simplicity and minimalism. I listen to my friends talk about selling their starter homes for something bigger, and I cannot wrap my head around 1500 sq. feet of space not being enough. Nothing is ever enough. Everyone strives for the same things and they are never happy enough. They say they wish they could do this or that, but they are never driven enough to do it. So they settle and go through life being complacent . Complacency does not lead to happiness or fulfillment.

So how do you do it? How do avoid falling into the rat race? How do you prevent yourself from living just to work and working just to pay for your mortgage, loans, car payment, childcare, etc.? There isn’t one answer. Everyones quest for their real world will be different because everyones ideal real world is different. Something that helps is knowing what you don’t want, what you do want and what you are willing to do for it. I can’t say never, but for now I know that my wife and I refuse to be slaves to a mortgage or to jobs that leave us no time to do what makes us feel alive. We don’t need much. We don’t find value in “things”. And when you can let go of all the materialistic shit and focus on the experiences that truly fulfill you, you can stop living for a paycheck. After all, nature is always there, right outside your window, free of charge.

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The Trouble with my Hair

 My hair, it is the vein of my existence. For my entire life I have received comments on my hair. Most of them compliments, some of them backhanded, and some it is hard to tell. It has been both flattering and embarrassing. I have been interrupted during dates and flagged down in departments stores. I have been told it is a blessing and a curse leaving me to ponder, a curse for me or for you? I have had strangers ask if they can touch it, and I’ve had strangers not ask and touch it anyway. Women have glared at me in restrooms while others gush about how they envy it. I’ve been asked if it is hard work which I coyly respond, “No, it’s actually pretty low maintenance.” People want to know which products I use and how much, how often I shampoo and condition. I have written step by step instructions for waitresses while I am out to breakfast. They want to know how I brush it (I don’t own a brush), if I blow dry it (I don’t own one of those either), and how much I hated it when I was little (not at all).

Many are shocked to hear that I grew up liking my hair. Actually, until I hit middle school I never paid much attention to it. My mother combed it out for me when I got out of the shower, and I wore it in a braid most of the time. Occasionally it would be worn half up/half down for the school play or picture day. My mother never put products in it, and she would brush it out so it looked like a frizzy, puffy, triangle behind my head. In spite of that, I never hated it, but should I have? Was I supposed to hate my curly hair? And what does it say about me that I didn’t? Was I conceited or full of myself? Did it seem as though I was bragging? Should I lie and go along with it saying, “Of course I hated it!”

Kids sitting behind me in class would stick pencils in it to see if I could feel it and how long they could get them to stay in before slipping out. One woman asked if I ever considered relaxing it, just a little of course, to give it more length. Once, I was told it made me look hard, angry, unapproachable, and intimidating. My hair can do all that?! The rare moments I would straighten it out were always interesting. The reactions were off the charts. I was almost unrecognizable with straight hair. People couldn’t believe how straight it was, how long it was, even how the color changed. They would ask, why would you ever want to get rid of those beautiful curls? Some thought it was permanent, getting judgmental and saying in a snarky tone, I can’t believe you would do that. Then there were the other comments, the ones that stung a little- that looks great, you should wear it like that more often, don’t ever wash it, I like it better this way, you look younger, you look prettier etc. These comments left me perplexed. This wasn’t how I looked naturally. It was like someone saying that I looked better with makeup on. Like, what did you think of me before? Straightening my hair gave me complicated feelings. In a way I felt more confident, partly because I got less attention and didn’t have the looming insecurity of my big curly hair. I looked more normal, like most other girls. I blended in.

Once, on a date someone told me “I love your hair, I think it’s your best feature”. At first I took it like any compliment, I blushed and said thank you with a smile. But, then it sunk in. If my hair is my best feature, what does that say about the rest of me? An old friend of mine told me that her boyfriend said I grabbed the attention of all his friends because of my hair, it made me look exotic, and without it I would be just like any girl- regular, average, nothing special. The first thing I should have done was get rid of the friend (who tells someone that unless they are trying to hurt their feelings). Instead, I chuckled, and silently my insecurity grew. Is that true? Is my hair the best thing about me? Is it all that matters? What if I lost my curl? What would I be then? Bland? Boring? Useless? Unattractive? Just plain Ugly? What if I got cancer and all my hair fell out and grew back in straight? What would I do? Would I ever be found intriguing to anyone ever again if I didn’t have this hair? Would no one ever compliment my smile or my eyes? Does that even matter? Because it doesn’t appear they are noticed now anyway. What about, gasp, my personality?! Am I not funny enough, do I have no sense of humor? Am I not interesting enough? No wit? Nothing? Am I nothing without my hair?

My hair and I went through many phases together. There was the phase of being too insecure about it’s bigness to wear it down. I felt like there was too much of it, drawing too much attention and not in a good way. Like I was walking around with a giant clown wig on, its course wiry curls getting in the faces of people walking by. There was the phase of always wearing it down because I felt like I had to. Like people expected it. Like it was a shame not to. I felt like without it framing my face I was not much to look at. There was too much face for my comfort level. It brought unwanted attention to my nose which was slightly off centered from a break when I was little and my tiny brown eyes. I never felt I was pretty enough. I couldn’t put my best face forward, my hair was the best thing I had. Nobody will ever compliment me if they don’t see my hair, I will be exactly what people have said, boring and unnoticeable.

There were times when the compliments were too much and I wanted to hide my hair and then there were moments when I felt incredibly dependent on those compliments. Without them my self esteem plummeted. I was starting to develop a bit of a complex- a love/hate relationship with my hair. The hair that, for the most part, I always loved. And, not because other people loved it, but because I genuinely loved it. It was a part of me, like a limb. My hair fit me, it fit my personality. I wanted to love my hair but I didn’t want to depend on it to feel better about myself.

The older I get, the less entangled I get with my hair. It has taken on a more fitting, proper role. It is just my hair. I wear it up in a big puff ball on top of my head, tendrils falling down on my forehead like bangs. I play around with it more, brushing out the curls in a deliberate frizzy mane. I manipulate the curls into more of a wave for a nice change. I part it down the middle flattening out the top and drawing more attention to my prominent nose for a different silhouette. I let it get really big, the bigger the better, without worrying It will get in someone’s way or block their view at the movie theatre. I coil it up into a tight bun, I braid it. I cover it up entirely with a scarf. I do whatever I am in the mood to do on that particular day and I let it have no lengthy effect on me. It makes me no prettier and no uglier. It makes me no more confident or insecure. It makes me no less approachable or intimidating. I am not funnier with it or more serious. It does not make me sexy or plain. It makes me no more or less worthy of your attention. It makes me no more of myself or less of myself.


Once in a while

Every once in a while
I get the urge to be ugly
To shave my head
They say it’s my face
My hair makes it look angry
Every once in a while
I get the urge to be ugly
To be hard, to be edgy
I want scars on this skin
I want ink on my body
Someone said it was my best feature
Someone said I should smooth it out
Be careful what you ask for, it is longer than yours
Is it too big for you
Is it too frizzy for you
Does it scare you
That I am not like you
Is it too chaotic around my small, almond eyes
They see you
You see me coming from a mile away

Every once in a while
I get the urge to be ugly
To stop trying to be pretty
I am too clean
To small
I need meat on these bones
This body is getting smaller
Edges where curves should be
Am I waisting away
I have to let out my desires
Set them free from these cages
Set them free
I have this urge to be ugly
Because that’s what I am
When I am not trying to be beautiful
What is beauty anyway
This hair is my perfect
This hair is my flaw
This hair is my child
I am tending to it all the time

I am not my hair
I am the knot at the nape of my neck
Do I have a face
Is there someone awake inside me
Every once in awhile
I have the urge to be ugly
To check the “other” box
I am female
I am sexy
I am beautiful
I am hard
I am too thin
I am too independent
I am too inward
I am not poetic enough
I need more
Education
I need more
Words
I need more
Tools
I need more
Metaphors
I need more

I am my hair
I am wild
I am messy
I am going In different directions
I am loud like the volume
As singular as the tightly wound curl
I am stretching
When you pull me
I bounce back
Cut me
I will grow
Wash me
I am clean
Try to tame me
I will fight it

I am not commanding your attention
I am demanding, look away
I am not my hair
Picture me
Bald
Every once in a while