Next Time Someone Wants To Fit You Into A Mold, Tell Them That Your Jeans Are In The Wash, Your Angel's At The Mall, And Oprah's On The Other Line

The year of letting go, of understanding loss. Grace. Of the word ‘no’ and also being able to say ‘you are not kind’. The year of humanity/humility. When the whole world couldn’t get out of bed. Everyone I’ve met this year says the same thing ‘you are so easy to be around, how do you do that?’. The year I broke open and dug out all the rot with my own hands. The year I learned small talk. And how to smile at strangers. The year I understood that I am my best when I reach out and ask ‘do you want to be my friend?’. The year of sugar, everywhere. Softness. Sweetness. Honey honey. The year of being alone, and learning how much I like it. The year of hugging people I don’t know, because I want to know them. The year I made peace and love, right here.

________

A colleague yesterday asked me “Where are you?”. And something about that question really touched me. I haven’t gotten over it yet. Hearing that genuine and heartfelt question from across the table of “where is your head at right now?” just really moved something in me. Where am I?

I didn’t even realize it at the time that I was on a rollercoaster. But I’m out of the amusement park now. And I’m back. So where do we start? It’s almost like when you run into someone you went to school with eons ago and they’re like “Hey what’s new?” and you’re like “Oh I don’t know, everything!”. 

The things I've learned in the last year:

Transformation. How to transmute lead into gold. How to say no. How to say "you are not kind". How to say "this is not love". How to take my hand away from everything demanding it, put it back on my heart and say “this is what’s important”. How to exceed and ignore expectations at the same time.

Since I’ve been gone from BrightLightsBlog...

I moved back to Edmonton. It was scary, but life is a little scary even if you don’t jump off a cliff every once in a while. There’s always a higher cliff. It turned out to be the best decision of my life. Reunited with my family, and most importantly, myself. I found my dream job -- by the way, my words and blogs do not reflect the views of my employer and yaddayaddayadda. I found a spiritual community that keeps me safe. I grieved. I grieved some more. I thought I was done grieving and found myself crying to my boss at work about how I hadn’t even started to grieve and then began grief counseling. Ha. That was a good day for our bonding. Truly, he’s a good man and was a good listener that day. I so appreciate him. I met some soulmates. Please know I use the term soul mate pretty loosely. Ask me about my twin flame though, weeeeoooo love love love. I met mentors that love and support me unconditionally and have shown me a whole new world. I healed myself: mind body and spirit. I learned how to use my intuition, to create and manifest miracles, and then how to teach others to do the same. And I think that’s where I’m at now. Teaching and sharing miracles.

So I think I’m back. Lots of signs led me back to BrightLights. Past readers and even people I didn't know (so cool!) asked "when is BrightLights coming back?". Don’t get me wrong, I never stopped writing, in fact I don’t miss a day without journalling either first thing in the morning or last thing before bed… it’s just that I stopped publishing. If I’m going to write I want to be honest. More honest than I should be, more often than I should be. I’ll shed my layers. I’ll let you in. Will I continue writing every day? I don’t know. I don’t always know if I’ll wake up the next morning… but when I want to, I usually do ;)

I got you babe,

Marley