Gracie Abrams: New York, Night 1

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The best part of my job is that I’m simultaneously an observer and a participant in something beautiful. It’s like being a bridesmaid. It’s not your wedding, but you’re there and you’re somehow part of it: a spectator and an observer, but you’re also bringing value to the moment by being there. Your gaze, your presence, the way you show up in that place and bear witness: it matters. And that’s what I remind myself. My gaze, my presence, how I show up in that place and how I interact and how I carry my camera and how I use my eyes: it matters.

That is really the only way that being a music photographer is like being a bridesmaid. I’ve definitely never shot a show in a floor-length dress from David’s Bridal (if you know, you know). But I’m there, holding the figurative space between being part of it and being outside of it; and holding the physical space between the stage and the crowd; and holding my camera and sometimes holding my breath. However, you better believe I’m singing along (if I know the song) or dancing or sometimes crying, all while working. If you went to any of the All-American Rejects shows a couple summers ago, you definitely saw me skipping and hollering “Swing, Swing” along with the crowd while I worked. I’m not part of the crowd—not really—but I’m in it and what I’m doing changes the way you’ll remember the night. Or at least that’s my hope. I carry a lot of hope into those dark rooms. Most of my hope is found in the humans. Most of my hope is for my age peers and for those that are coming up after us. It’s for the dancers and the outcasts, the ones who show up to shows alone and who are brave enough to say “hello” to the person next to them.

Since the Gracie Abrams show was pit-free and I had the time, I showed up early so I wouldn’t be that photographer who shows up late and tries to cut the whole line—and then gets stuck standing next to those same bummed or angry fans all evening. No one likes that experience so I try to avoid it as much as I possibly can by getting there early and waiting it out with everyone else. Drew Barrymore said something yesterday that I just can’t shake. She began: “I care what people think [of me]”—she paused and corrected herself: “No, I care how people feel.”

And there is the nuance. You can do everything right in your career and sometimes people just won’t like you because of your haircut or the color you highlight a spreadsheet or something equally miniscule. You can’t control how people perceive you and to the degree you can’t control it, you can’t hold it too tightly. But how people feel around you—while you also can’t really control their feelings—you can control the way you treat them with kindness (yes, cue Harry Styles). So that’s the kind of career I want to live. It’s taken me a long time and I feel like I’m still on the runway, waiting to take off. But I also know that the people I’ve worked with have received beautiful images and I’ve gained their respect and that’s worth so much more than a quick fix. Kindness: it matters.

Since I was waiting anyways, I decided to do fan photos. It’s easily been 2 years since I’ve done them, really (shoutout to Covid for that). I still get nervous every time: it took me about 25 minutes to talk myself into it. But then I did and almost everyone said “yes.” The last gal just lit up, grinning, with the most enthusiastic “yes” I’ve heard. And then I remember why I do this: yes, it’s creativity, but it’s also the people, the connection, the being part of something big and beautiful. 

After photographing the fans all the way to the corner of Ludlow, I made my way back to my perch by the nail salon (cue Lorde). It wasn’t until I starting to shuffle towards the door that I realized (remembered really—I’ve thought of this before) that I’m just the right person for this. While, yes, it is hard sometimes to see yet another inexperienced dude get a huge tour while I’ve worked hard for a decade (cue Olivia Rodrigo: “jealousy, jealousy”—at this point I’ve cued enough songs, I probably should make an accompanying playlist), do you think the moms in line would let a random dude take a photo of their daughter? Probably not. I’m basically the size of a 15-year-old and as a result I’m way more approachable and way less intimidating. 

This thought always follows: there are spaces made and meant for me. I don’t even know all of them yet, but they exist and I won’t miss what’s mean for me. I will find myself and I will be found. And I’m here right now and that’s exactly where I’m supposed to be. So here’s my reminder for you: you’re right where you’re supposed to be. There are opportunities and paths ahead of you that are shaped just the way you are made. You have not missed out on what’s meant for you. So dance through the sad songs and lean in because where you’re headed is golden.

Right at 6 when doors were supposed to open, someone walked by with their phone ringing. The ringtone? “I’ve got your picture, I’m coming with you, dear Maria count me in!” 

And somehow that song, that moment, as I walked into a dark room full of strangers, all holding the same songs behind their eyes and in their throats for a night: somehow it all feels like exactly where I’m supposed to be. If you ask me why I keep doing this work, why I exist in this musical periphery, this story, these moments, these are the reasons. The belonging, the becoming, the space between the crowd and the stage, the space between what I see in through my camera and what I share with the world. It’s beauty in the faces of the crowd and the beauty in the pauses between songs as the artist notices the crowd singing along and grins. It’s catching my breath and catching flickers of light and on lucky days, I get to catch flights, too. But mostly I hope we all catch a little bit of a reminder of the ways we are found and why we need each other. I hope we remember the feeling of everyone else singing along, of feeling less alone, even in our gentle sadnesses. There’s a beauty in those things, too, and maybe the beauty is found in not having to feel it alone, you know?

So here’s your last reminder: You belong here. You belong in the rooms you step into and you don’t have to earn that belonging. You are enough and you are not too much, no matter what feelings you carry today. There will always be songs for the feelings and rooms to dance in to those songs and there will always be someone else who feels the same way, I promise. We are all less alone than we feel and the way that 250 people realized that together on a Tuesday night: thank you for letting me photograph that feeling.

P.S. if you’re reading this and are like, “oh, hey, that’s a photo of me!” email me at estorie@outlook.com and I’ll send you your fan photo. We love to see it!

2019: Plants and when All of my Plans fell Apart

Grace

Every year for the past 3 years, I’ve chosen a word for the year and at the end of the year, I’ve spent time reflecting on what that word has meant to me over the past 3 months. Maybe it’s like a prayer, that by speaking that word over my year, it is conjured up in my life. Or maybe by speaking that word over my year, I simply begin seeing it more all around me.

This year, I picked the word “grace,” and I thought it primarily be evidenced as something I would learn how to offer, but instead I learned I mostly needed it myself. I needed grace for my mistakes, grace for my failures, grace for not being where I thought I’d be, and mostly grace in the changing: grace to become someone different than I thought I’d be.

An Introduction

“At this point next year, when you look back, what will you be jacked about, that you got done?”

As I’m sitting and writing this, the three 30-and-40-something men at the table next to me are talking about their upcoming year’s goals—things like getting engaged or buying houses or opening new branches. They’re very white collar, with literal popped sweater collars and clean-cut haircuts. In my head, they’re the opposite of everything I’ve become: they’re clean, successful, confident—and it’s easy for feelings of insufficiency to creep in like a squirrel in the attic (that’s another story from 2019).

But I’m also sitting at a bar that didn’t exist last year, and I’m reminded how much can change in 12 months. I don’t have to be accomplished, or at least accomplished by anyone else’s standards. I don’t have to have a list of things I’ve done or bought or ways I’ve grown up. That’s okay.

What I do have a story of how I’ve changed.

Often change starts with learning and ends with growing and so my story begins with learning a little more about who I am.

One thing I’ve learned this year is that I like plants. For years, a series of dead African violets drove me to believe I was a bad plant mom. I told myself that was my identity. I believed it. I was simply destined to be a plant killer.

Then one day a coworker passed my desk, saw my air plants (which I have painstakingly kept alive for two years) and spoke the words: “you’re a good plant mom.” No one had ever told me that—let alone meant it.  I wanted her words to be true. And so I began to believe them. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t kill any more plants this year, but I also now own about 13 plants and most of them are happy. I’ve learned how to care for them well (thanks, Art Terrarium) and it’s become something more beautiful and peaceful than stressful.

One things I’ve learned from being a plant mom is that plants need pruning. Maybe this is obvious for an experienced plant caretaker, but it’s taken me a while to get used to it. I feel harsh when I cut pieces off my plants, especially if they’re not dead, just overgrown. I feel like I’m killing a part of the plant—because I am.

That’s what I’ve learned this year: plants need pruning and so do I. Sometimes I want to hang onto those dead leaves or overgrown places and sometimes the dead spots must be trimmed by someone else when I cannot do it for myself. Sometimes the overgrown places must be pried out of my white-knuckled hands so that I can grow.

Part 1: Things I’ve lost this year

In every regard, this year went exactly the opposite of how I’d hoped and planned and dreamed. I thought the year would end with a ring and a new adventure. I clenched tightly to that dream, to the point where I was suffocated with anxiety and forced, by tear-filled weeks and last resorts, to let go. Once I let go of that dream and that direction, I had no idea where I was going. I felt lost, directionless, broken, sad—completely unanchored.

I lost my best friend, my dreams, an entire friend group, my small group. Everything was torn apart in a day, when my life was deeply pruned. It’s not what I would’ve chosen and I would be lying if I said it wasn’t extremely painful, like a leaf being torn off a plant, like everything I’d built for years crumbling beneath me.

What a time to rebuild.

The thing about rebuilding is it first requires demolition. Things must be torn down before they can be rebuilt. I’m not who I thought I was a year ago, and that is largely because of what was torn down and what was rebuilt in its stead.

One of my new 2019 tattoos says “rebuild” and another is of open hands. It’s a reminder to hold my hands open and not clench what I cannot control. (That’s the pruning.) But this week I read an Instagram post (I can’t recall whose—so sorry!) about holding your hands open to possibilities. I’d never thought about my open hands that way. I’d always thought about holding my hands open to loosen my grip on what isn’t meant for me. I’d always thought of open hands in terms of losing and trusting. I’d always thought of open hands as a scary or painful thing. I’d never thought of being able to hold my hands open so that I can accept rather than let go.

The same hands that dreams fell out of: they are now opened to newness and wholeness and dreaming again.

There are also things I’ve gained:

I tried to write this section as paragraphs that flowed beautifully, but after 4 re-writes, it still worked best as bullet points. Upon retrospection, I think it’s because I learned and changed so much. Usually I have one big overarching lesson for the year, but this year I have over half a dozen. In a year where I’ve cried more than any other year in my life (like deep ugly sobbing), that’s a freaking victory.

If you hate reading lists, the gist is: I’m happy and healthy now. If you’d like the details, keep reading.

1. My mental health
While my life was stripped to the core last spring, the rebuilding started long before then. I found my therapist in early winter and she’s been my weekly and now bi-weekly companion for the past 11 months. I would not have survived this past year without her support. 

2. my physical health and my relationship with my body
About the same time, I began dancing again, once a week, at my now-friend Mari’s hip-hop classes. I’d been previously told that my emotions were too much, that they were a burden, unwanted, unwelcome—or welcome only in small doses. But then I found this thing—dancing—where emotions are like a superpower. If you can emotionally connect with a song, then your movement is only all the more powerful. It was a healthy outlet, a life-saver. It helped me find myself again. But when those classes ended, I was again adrift, hating most workouts, but knowing that moving my body is good for my heart.

So I began looking. Through Looking for Lovely (thanks, Kassie!), I learned about Zumba classes and through some googling and a coworker’s recommendation, I found both a gym and a studio. Between the two, I’ve been dancing four times a week most weeks. I want to learn more next year, and maybe find an adult hip-hop class again. Through dancing, my body and emotions have become allies instead of enemies and that is one of my greatest victories of the year.

3. healthy relationships 
I’ve also found new friends and reclaimed old friends that I didn’t lose after all. My friend and roommate Sara saw me at my worst and stayed—and not just because she lives with me. She walked with me through the worst days of my life. I can guarantee you I wasn’t a fun friend or even a good friend for months, but she chose to see me not as my pain but as my personhood—so she stayed. I’m insanely grateful; some days her words and hugs kept me afloat when everything else was caving in. Through the past 6 months, my other 4 roommates have become my friends, too, and my home has become a safe and beautiful place. 

Because I lost so many relationships, I’ve been able to start over with choosing my friends, and that’s brought freedom and clarity. For most of my life, I’ve simply landed in friendships without much intentionality in choosing them or in setting boundaries; but I don’t want comfortable haphazard relationships. I want life-giving ones, ones that challenge me on a creative level and on a human level. I intentionally made new friends and reconnected with old ones and I’ve learned it’s okay if my circle is small. It is small right now. I’ve learned that people have to earn your trust and the right to be in your story and hear your story. That’s not mean—it’s wise.

4. my home
A few months ago I decided to shift my perspective. I’d always viewed my home as a temporary landing place and my life right now as a temporary stage until I move into some grand career and beautiful relationship and more permanent home. But that didn’t happen at all. And through that disappointment, I realized that if I don’t appreciate what’s in front of me now, I’ll spend literally my entire life discontent and looking at the greener grass and at other hills and longing for things in a different tense—when all I have is this present tense in my open hands. So I chose new words for the past few months: lean in—savor.

I bought new bedding and I’m working on making my home feel like a home. As I mentioned, I’ve been working to become better friends with my roommates and I’m viewing this season of living with several amazing women as a gift, as something temporary in a beautiful way. I know now that if I miss this because I’m longing for something else, I’ll never get it back.

5. my job
I took a 9-to-5 (well, 10-to-6) and I’m happy about it. It’s provided me income stability, it’s allowed me to afford therapy and the dentist. I love my coworkers. It’s not where I thought I’d be in any imagining, but if I release myself from the expectations of my former self, I genuinely enjoy the life I’m living.

I learned I like old fashioned’s and I drank whiskey in Memphis—on a work trip. Sometimes you learn that stability is beautiful, but you’re also given adventure because God knows it’s good and necessary for your wandering soul. I’ve seen both gifts through my job this year.

6. my words
One of the biggest things I regained in 2019 was my voice and my words. My anxiety had so numbed my ability to feel or write and it wasn’t until loss capsized me that I found my voice again in the waves.

I wrote poems and prayers and stories, for myself, to God, to process my pain and growth. And I wrote the bravest letter and chased the biggest dreams and perhaps I’ll never get a reply, but I’m learning to live without regrets or perhaps. I found my words and I found my strength and I found my bravery—all within my pen.

7. REST and hobbies
For the first time in years, I took a proper rest—it was only 2.5 days, but it’s more than I’ve gotten in ages. I sat in the woods and drank coffee and drank wine and wrote and read and fought the feeling that I should be DOING something. Sometimes it’s okay just to be.

Having a more traditional job and consistent income has afforded me the privilege of rest and hobbies and aspects of my life that have been neglected for the past decade. I’ve begun drawing and painting and knitting again and you probably won’t see much of those online, and that’s okay. Perhaps it’s even good, to release my creativity from the need to perform or to be seen or to drum up income. Perhaps just being is enough. Perhaps my just being, in the woods, in my home, in my life—perhaps it’s enough.

Through the past year, I’ve learned I desperately need nature and I need silence and I freaking need rest and I need to build a life that’s not all hustle. I need both breaks and breakthroughs. Breakthroughs come through pain and breaks come through intentional rest and I’m learning to handle both with grace. There’s grace for peaceful slowing down and grace for messy growing up and perhaps I did learn my word of the year after all (just never in the way I thought).

Things I’ve learned this year: 

I’m constantly learning and unlearning and growing and changing and collecting good versions of my past self to continue on the journey with me and pruning dead versions of lost selves to let go of and leave behind. I’m learning I am strong and I am brave, two words that were left with me on the hardest day. 

I’ve learned I’m stronger than I thought I could ever be. I lived through a season of anxiety and tears and while my life isn’t perfect or fully free of those things, I am most definitely more happy than sad, and in that, I am thriving. My life is incredibly different than I imagined last January, but it’s so good. Sometimes pruning is necessary. It always hurts. It always provides opportunities for growth. 

I’ve learned growth is a choice. It’s often the harder and more painful choice, but on the other side, I can tell you it’s worth it. I can tell you that it gets better.

There’s a Dawes song playing now, over the voices of the three men discussing their years. The song goes: 

“And now the only piece of advice that continues to help is anyone that’s making anything new only breaks something else. When my time comes, oh oh oh. When my time comes…”

When my time comes, I hope I will welcome it with open hands and a grateful heart—ready for both letting go and being filled, the pruning and the rebuilding. 

Things I’m leaning into for 2020: an epilogue

As I mentioned 2000 words ago, I usually pick a word for the new year. Oftentimes I buy a Giving Key to go along with it and wear that word on that key as a reminder of who I want to grow into. I begin the year with a long post about my hopes and dreams and end with an even longer one about how I have seen them conjured up in my life.

Honestly? That’s a lot of pressure.

I feel like I have to learn and grow in a certain way and sometimes that’s not how life works. Sometimes the branch we think is going to flower is the one that becomes pruned and sometimes what we thought we were gaining is what we have to lose. Growth is difficult to predict because it often comes through unexpected problems and heartache—and how are you to predict that?

So the words that have come to me for this next season are only these two: this matters.

Whatever it looks like. Whatever it feels like. However I grow or change—or don’t—at whatever speed I do it at. It matters. Not in a way that is full of heaviness and legalism: like, this matters so you better pick the right path and never mess up and always be perfect. No. It means the opposite. It’s more like: this matters, so it’s okay if all you did today was laundry and rest. This matters, even when you feel small or insignificant. This matters, even when its not epic. This matters, even when it doesn’t look cool on social media. Small things matter. Small moments matter. Small people matter. You matter. I matter. Even in our smallness of days and moments. I’m not wasting my life even when my life is full of small things. They matter. I matter. This matters.

All I want to do is remember my value and your value and each day’s value and each word’s value, as I walk across the days that will become 2020. All those small moments, I want to embrace them with risk and beauty and intention, even if they are small and quiet and unexpected. They matter. This matters. I will walk on those words.

If you need those words, they’re yours, too. Let’s lean in and savor this new decade: this matters.

Brand New

Three years ago in January, I chased a dream to Colorado. I drove through Kansas in unseasonably warm weather with the windows down, listening to Needtobreathe on repeat. I made new friends and visited old ones and stopped to sight see. But at the end of the journey, every door to my dream closed. I felt lost and confused. I couldn’t stay where I was but I didn’t know how to move forward. So I took an office job. It felt like a defeat—a blow to my pride and independence.

I sat in a cubicle from 7:25am to 4pm and I was incredibly ungifted at my job. (One thing I learned through the experience is I hadn’t often tried—and stuck with—things I’m not good at.) I wasn’t used to this failure and I wasn’t used to a cubicle and I wasn’t used to not being allowed to talk to anyone all day.

It was so easy to slip into monotony and discouragement. So every day I picked up my phone and used my lunch break as a fight for joy. I sought to find one thing every day that was beautiful to take a photo of. It may be as simple as light on a wall. The thing is: you can find beauty anywhere if you’re looking. I wrote a blog post about loving the skies you’re under, when those skies are ceiling tiles.

On my lunch breaks I sometimes walked three blocks, rented a bike, biked across downtown, bought an iced latte from someone who knew my name, and biked and walked back. It took 35 minutes exactly. That was how lonely I was. I’d spend $12 on my lunch break for a bike ride, a latte, and human connection.

The other thing I did on my lunch break is dance. The cool thing about office jobs is they are often connected to parking garages, which happen to be empty of humans and amazing for midday dancing. I’d kick of my shoes, put on Ben Rector’s “Brand New” and dance my booty off. I chased joy every day. While I never grew to love my job, I look back on those lunch breaks with joy and fondness. They were only 35 minutes but used intentionally, they changed me and my outlook.

Today, almost exactly three years later (35 months), I find myself again a little lost and lonely and wondering why my dreams keep disappearing. I don’t know where to go next or what’s ahead. But I have bare feet and an open road. I have an iced mocha and I’m going to see Ben Rector and dance my booty off.

Just like three years ago, I’m not going to wait until it’s good to chase light and dance. I am going to dance and look for light on dark days until the joy comes. I don’t know what’s ahead but I’m going to meet it dancing. I will find light in the walls and sunburns on my shoulders and pavement under my bare feet. I will dance before the joy comes, until the miracle comes, no matter what comes my way. In the words of queen Maggie Rogers, “I’ll be dancing at the end of the day.”

I wrote this Saturday, but the photo is from spring 2016. My hair had changed over the last three year—and I hope my heart has changed, too.

Keep dancing,

Liz

Rebuild

Rebuild. 

I was going to get a different tattoo this weekend. I had a plan. But on Thursday decided to get this word instead. I knew it with a surety that my whimsical Enneagram 4 self barely ever experiences. I knew the word I wanted and I knew where I wanted it. I was calm and I was sure. But I didn't really know why that word was meant for me. It had come up a few times in my life over the past few months, but that was about it. It hadn't changed my life or anything--yet. 

After getting the word on my arm, I met up with my friend Lauren to go to a worship night. I still really didn’t know why I’d gotten the word, only that it was supposed to be there.

Then that night, in the middle of an anxiety battle, the words were sung over me, with me, in me: “I will build my life upon Your love; it is a firm foundation. I will put my trust in You alone and I will not be shaken.” I knew as soon as I heard those words, why I needed them. I knew what I needed to demolish and I knew how I needed to rebuild: on love, in love. I needed to demolish my fear, to demolish my desire to control, to demolish my anxiety. I needed to trust that God will hold and contain me--and I need to rebuild upon love.

When I worked at Principal, I took walks on my lunch breaks to keep me sane. One of my favorite things to watch was demolition. There’s something satisfying about these intentional collapses or tiny explosions, the arching cranes and the swinging wrecking balls. 

Here’s the thing: when you build something you start from the ground up. But when you rebuild something, first you have to demolish what’s there. You have to deconstruct what’s underneath. And while demolition looks cool from the sidewalk, it feels like sadness or disappointment or pain in my heart.  

But my heart and my life have been built on top of people and on top of fear. I have been afraid of being left behind. I have been afraid of failure. I have been afraid of being wrong or being hurt. So I have clung so deeply and desperately to fear, hoping anxiously that it will keep me safe. I have clung to people, hoping they won’t let me down. I have clung so tightly and created a foundation out of fear. I have been overwhelmed by anxiety and disappointment and exhaustion.
But maybe I'm tired and I'm reading too much into it. Maybe that's all the word was supposed to mean.

The next morning, I got to church and the sermon was called "Good Ground." I kid you not, these were some of the points in the sermon:

-You're only as good as your foundation.

-Obedience to Jesus and his words is the only foundation.

-Jesus doesn't just want to repair your foundation; he wants to replace it with the Rock.

Does that sound a little like demolition to you? A little like rebuilding?

Then I read in Ephesians about how as the Church, we are being built together into a place where God dwells. And I'm pretty sure he dwells in love and not in fear.

By this third "coincidence," I knew why I needed this word on my arm. I knew how and what I needed to rebuild. Today  I need to begin demolishing fear and begin rebuilding in trust in Jesus and in love. Perhaps much of life is learning what to demolish and learning what to rebuild. Maybe this is growing--tearing down and building up until we are strong and brave and resilient and loving.

So here I am today, holding this crumbling heart, trying to deconstruct the fears I've based my life upon. I'm striving to trust that the pain through the demolition process will lead to something more sturdy and strong and beautiful and enduring as I'm rebuild, more secure. As I'm rebuilt on love. As I'm rebuilt with a strong trust that God will always keep my heart safe and he will never let me down. I am hurting now, but I am being rebuilt, I believe that.

Over the last couple of months, I've been reading Hannah Brencher’s book Come Matter Here. Coincidentally, she writes: “‘I want you to look around... Look at all the things you’ve done here. You’ve built so many beautiful things, but you built them all out of fear. I don’t want you to think you have to go through your life being ruled by fear... It wouldn’t be too big to believe you could let the fear go. You could build out of love instead.”

So here I am. Demolishing the fear. Rebuilding out of love instead.

Valentine's Day

Dear you,

Honestly Valentine’s Day has never been my fave. I’ve felt everything from apathetic to angsty to sad. I get it.

Last Valentine’s Day I was on tour so this is my and Blake’s first real holiday. I’m tempted to say it’s my first Valentine’s Day not alone but the truth is I previously spent it with the Aces and with my mom and sister and with gal pals. Just because you don’t have that one person doesn’t mean you’ve got to be alone.

And even if you have someone it doesn’t mean it’ll be easy. Blake and I are very different people and it’s been an incredibly good and hard and challenging year—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Being in a relationship didn’t make me stop changing and crying and losing people and feeling lonely and anxious and insecure and self-conscious and jealous and all the same yucky things I felt before. If anything, being in a relationship has shined a light on my inadequacies and torn down the ways I’ve been proud and wrong.

We are constantly growing and demolishing and reclaiming and rebuilding ourselves and our relationships. Perhaps this is what it means to grow, to be human.

I’ve changed so much internally this year, demolishing thoughts about myself, relationships, and the world. I’m working to rebuild my insides. It’s long work and painful work and I’m still not done, but I’m hopeful and I’m determine to keep growing.

I am so so thankful for Blake and how he’s loved me through anxiety, sadness, joy, peace, and growth. But at the end of the day, I’m still me. And I still have to do the hard work of changing my insides and my circumstances. Blake can support me, love me, and challenge me—but that hard internal work has to be done by me. 

On days like today, drinking a cinnamon shortbread iced latte and wearing a Miranda Lambert shirt, and driving with the windows down—I’m starting to feel like myself again. Like the growth and hard work and hard days are paying off. 

I do love Blake and he’s my best person and that’s just as true on Valentine’s Day as any other day. But I remember being single and feeling so sad after scrolling through gross sappy “everything is perfect now” photos on Instagram and I don’t want to write a sappy post, not because I don’t love him, but because of how those posts made me feel. 

So this is me telling you a different story today: you’re okay. We’re figuring it out and we’re all doing our best. You’ve got this. Maybe you’ve got a hand to hold while you’re doing it and maybe you don’t, but that’s not always the point. The point is I believe in you. I’m going through hard things, too. Being in a relationship didn’t fix me. It helped me grow, but I still had to do the work. We still all have to do the work. It’s brave and it’s hard, but the beautiful thing is that you can do that brave work of growth whether or not you’re in a relationship. You can do it with your friends, your family, whatever community you find yourself in. You don’t have to do this alone. That’s the point, too, I suppose. The point is you’re doing the damn thing and you don’t have to do it alone. Every season—single or in a relationship—will be both hard and good, but if you lean in, I believe you can grow. I believe you WILL grow. I believe you are growing even if you don’t see it yet. Demolish, rebuild, grow—you’ve got this. WE’ve got this.

Much love, 

Liz 

Open Hands

Every year I pick a word. 

Usually it’s a word I want to grow into, kind of like optimistically buying one size too small of your dream pants, hoping you’ll hit the goal by the end of the year. By picking the word, I will be challenged in the mental/emotional gym: it’s inevitable. Picking a word means I will be required to lean into circumstances which cause internal muscles of that word to grow. Picking a word means choosing a battle, choosing a muscle, choosing growth and pain.

Last year my word was trust. 

I recently heard Brené Brown’s definition of trust and I love it: what’s important to me is safe with you. In the same way, she explains, distrust says: what’s important to me is not safe with you. 

I picked the word trust because don’t trust others with myself. I don’t trust that God knows what’s best for me and I don’t trust that other people do either. Yes, it’s isolating. Yes, it’s prideful. But, yes, it’s also how I’ve operated my life.

It wasn’t always this way, or at least this bad. Over the past two years, I lost relationships to distance and deception of varying degrees. My own insecurity and desire for acceptance had led to two results: choosing unhealthy relationships and not being my best self in those relationships. While I’m perhaps wiser now, I lost something beautiful in the process: my ability to quickly, honestly, simply trust people. And honestly to trust the God who allowed me to feel this pain.

I wanted to get better. (Cue Bleachers.)

I wanted to be open again, to trust again, to not be afraid. The way I’d been operating was “gather all the facts, try to predict the future, and guess who won’t leave.” I loved the freedom of choosing my outcomes and I loved things being fair and “right.” I wanted to know which choices would have the best outcome and which friendships would stick—before I made the decision. I began to overthink and anxiously project the past onto the future. I made guesses, predictions, decisions—all trying to self-protect. Instead of giving me confidence and peace, these actions deprived me of enjoying the present and pushed me further into anxiety and distrust. Through growing self-awareness and kind friends, I learned that the root of this problem: I love being in control.

I want to grab onto opportunities and hold tightly to relationships—and I want them to be opportunities that work out and people that choose to stay. If the outcomes turn unfavorable, I mentally berate myself, overthink my choices (again), and wonder how my well-thought (overthought) choice could’ve been so wrong. I was so careful. I was did my research. I picked the best choice. How did it end so poorly? How did it all spin so far out of my control?

What I missed was that none of it was ever in my control to begin with.

This year so many things have happened beyond my control. People left and people changed. Job opportunities came and left. Hundreds of teary moments left me with the decision to quit wearing eyeliner—and also feelings of helplessness and, one worse days, hopelessness. I could barely keep my own heart or emotions together, let alone hold onto anything else. Everything hurt: my eyes, my heart—and my anxious knuckles from still holding on so tightly.

If I open my hands, can I trust that what will fill and refill them will be good? Can I trust that what will leave is necessary and what stays will grow me? Can I be both wise and hopeful? Could there be a different story for me, beyond and apart from anxiety and pain and control?

Through pain, my hands were torn open. Through pain, I was forced to admit there was so much I could not control. There is so much I still cannot control.

Through pain, I am learning that I must hold everything with open hands.

I used to think that trust was learning the right things to close my hands around. But I now believe that trust is choosing to hold things with open hands. 

Yes, choose wisely. Yes, don’t give up easily. 

But just as importantly, hold your life and your opportunities and your relationships with open hands. 

Maybe this is trust. 

Maybe all we can ask is for the wisdom to decide which people and which opportunities to open ourselves up to. Maybe all we can ask is for the grace to keep them in open palms, letting them go if they choose to leave. This open-handed living is incredibly scary and vulnerable, with the potential of pain and hurt, disappointment and rejection. 

But my old way of living—overthinking and anxiety—inevitably damage even the best things. Living open-handed leaves me open to the possibility of a less painful ending, a life of gratefulness and joy and trust. There’s suddenly hope. Because what if I hold the gifts in open palms—and they stay? What if the ending is much better than I anticipated? What if good things are ahead, too?

I still cannot control who will love and who will leave. It’s terrifying. I still can not control which opportunities stick and which will pass me by. It’s scary. I never let go until the anxiety and pain of trying to hold uncontrollable things together forced me to open my hands. And I’m still learning to pray and pry my hands open every day. Maybe prayer is less about folding my hands together and more about holding them open and trusting that God will demolish and rebuild me into something better than I’d anticipated or projected or anxiously hoped.

Maybe prayer is trusting that if God removes something from my hands, it’s to rebuild me, not to deprive me.

I have learned that both God and those people close to me do want my good. I have learned that I can still trust their intentions. They want to love me and treat me with gentleness and kindness and respect. They want my good, even when it’s hard. And sometimes it will still be hard.

Trust is a choice. Assuming the best in people and in God is a choice. Opening your hands is a choice. And even it’s it’s still painful sometimes, it’s how I want to live now. Because it’s also hopeful. And freeing. 

My new mantra for my life is that I want to live optimistically with open hands.

I used to think that trust was learning the right things to close my hands around. But I now believe that trust is choosing to hold things with open hands. 

Father, Forgive Me

Hi God,
There's a lot of death lately.
Every time I open the internet
There's bombs flying and
Moms dying and
I don't know what to say anymore
I don't know what to pray anymore
I don't know what to feel anymore
I've been thinking about grief and life and
Wondering
Maybe if loss is what connects us.
Loss and life
Loss of life
Maybe there's a hope we will
Find it again
Will they find it again?
Why is death so much easier to define than
Life
And why
Is going to much easier than staying
Promise me
You won't laugh if I tell you
Some days I'm afraid
Some days I listen to
Fast songs
Because it's hard to
Think, to
Feel, to
Remember death is real
And that's where we are headed
The unknown
Is scary
Being known
Is scary
Sometimes I just wish for something
Easy, something
Easier
Is that wrong, God? 
I don't want to give up
I just want to
Sit down
For a minute?
Will you sit with me?
Will you promise I won't
Fall behind
Fall away
Fall apart
If I just rest here for a second? 
Will you remember me? 
Forgive me even, for
I don't know what I'm doing
Anymore.

Eternity and My Desire to Be Remarkable

Maybe writing is your Thing
I've been told
Eh maybe
I've answered
Thanks but
No thanks
Writing isn't sexy just like
Staying isn't sexy
We're all scared to be forgotten
So we want to be
Loud
Remarkable
Famous
Draw me like a
French girl
Write me up a
Wikipedia page
Name drop me in
Conversation
Make me famous
Make me proud
Make me bright and loud and
Anything but quiet
Anything but staying
Anything but writing
Anything but this quiet
Thing
I'm supposedly
Good at. 
Whatever that means. 
However I forget that
Words last
Forever.
There is
Eternity
In this pen
I write with my soul in my hands and maybe
That
Is remarkable
That is
Loud
Even if I am
Quiet.

Preposition or Emotion

How do you know
if you are IN love
and not just,
you know,
AROUND love or
ABOUT love or
some other preposition
with a different meaning
Please tell me
Is this
faulty grammar or a
faulty heart?

6.20.17

25

I’m turning 26 tomorrow.

I’m past the age of people writing cool songs about how old I am (what’s my age again?), but in the past week two people have guessed I’m 20 (thank you, Sierra), so I’m not feeling terribly old honestly. I have boxes from Horizon Line in the basement to make into a fort and I’ve bought a piñata that we are going to fill with lollipops on Tuesday. Parking lots make me want to dance like nobody’s business and so does the band COIN. I still don’t sleep enough, but I’m learning I function better if I do (maybe that’s wisdom or maybe I am just getting older).

Birthdays awaken nostalgia in me and they make me hope I’ve changed enough to qualify for graduation into another year of existence. Did 25 leave a mark on me? Am I changed? Has anything changed around me or in me?

Last year on April 30th, Brittany and Kassie and I were driving to New Mexico to wake up in a tipi on a snowy May 1st and I held a tumbleweed (that I named Terry) in the middle of nowhere. Best birthday to date and definitely difficult to top. In a small town with an old faded Wrangler’s store, I took a photo of a tattoo shop and captioned my post of it: this might be my year. And it was (I got 3).

Yet it’s easy to look back and wonder why I’m still here locationally. Why my feet haven’t moved more and to miss the fact that my heart has moved even as my feet have lingered.

But if we are talking physical miles, besides New Mexico, I’ve been to Kansas City, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Minneapolis, not to mention smaller towns. But the worth of my year isn’t in the miles I’ve traveled. I’ve moved houses and switched jobs and yet the worth of my year isn’t in the places I’ve lived or the desks I’ve occupied. The worth of a year is in the living and the growing and the changing. And sometimes that is inside your tumbleweed soul.

My word for last year was fearless. I learned that sometimes looks like staying. My word for this year is love and I’m learning that sometimes looks like staying, too.

I’ve lost relationships and forged new ones (falling apart and falling into and sometimes falling hurts and sometimes things fall together) and I’ve learned that much of live is learning how to grieve with graciousness and joy and to keep hoping in deeper things. I’ve felt more pain and more joy than in any other year. I’ve sobbed in a bathroom alone until I lost track of time and I’ve laughed and ran with friends until I lost track of time, too.

I’ve learned trust isn’t the same as belief and that stopping isn’t the same as taking root and I still have much more to learn and bigger dreams to run for even as my roots grow deeper. I’m learning to ask better questions and I’m learning to listen. Ilana often asks me what I’m learning and I like that. I’m still not good at silence, but I’m growing better at it—it scares me less than it used to. I’m reading more, and that’s good for my soul, too.

Originally, I had a paragraph about the different creative things I’ve done this year, but I don’t want it to sound like I’m bragging. Please don’t take it as such. It’s just a landmark, but it can become a land mine if it becomes my identity. I am not my work. But I’m learning to work out of joy rather than identity. Magazine articles and a cover, CD covers, bigger shows, collaborations: it’s been a whirlwind. I’ve learned a lot about editing—that’s been my biggest change; I still like deep moody edits, but I’m ending the year with color because that’s how I feel on the inside: deep and colourful in a way that doesn’t quite make sense, but I feel my lungs filling up fuller and fuller these days and I’m wondering if this is joy and I’m wondering if I’ve never quite felt it before. I’m learning to use thankfulness as a weapon and I hope I’m learning to love, not just the feeling.

This is me, 25 for a few more hours. Messy and full and braver than I was last year. Less miles under my feet, more miles under my soul. I want my tumbleweed soul to keep taking root and to keep growing and maybe I’ll move this year and maybe I won’t but my soul surely will move—but not wander—and I will keep creating. I’m writing a list of 26 things to do before I’m 27. I’m learning how to rest, but I’m not slowing down. This year is good. I am good right now. I am alive and I am here and I am thankful. I've been laughing a lot these days and running just because I can and both of these feel good, inside and out. I feel alive, inside and out. More alive than I have in a long time. Thank you for reading this. Thank you for adding joy to my existence. Thank you for teaching me kindness and bravery through your words. Thank you for rooting for this little tumbleweed soul. 

Love always,

Liz