Welcome to being a human being

Being a writer, I’m intensely interested in utilizing words. I don’t just throw nouns, verbs and adjectives around willy nilly – whether drafting a press release, crafting an article or (somewhat self-consciously) composing my first blog post.

Words are truly the heart of who I am. They have been ever since my Nana Whittle helped me learn to read and write at the coffee table in the living room of our family’s home in historic Woodbury, New Jersey, when I was still in nursery school.

Words have been my best friends through high school academics and college internships – often at the center of my successes, which were always stupendously celebrated by my family. Words have been my art, my outlet, my solace through trauma and heartache.

Now at 35 years old, a meandering path through the worlds of magazines and newspapers, coffeeshops and non-profits, marketing and freelancing has led me to today – two years into teaching Vinyasa yoga and starting my own blog.

For any of you people who create, you understand the process … painstaking inside all of our perfectionistic tendencies, completely freeing inside the moments when it all comes together … and that is why we are all just a little crazy. Or maybe a lot crazy.

I adamantly believed, for a better part of my years, that I would eventually find my way through the crap and out the other side into a “normal” life. Newsflash, if you haven’t yet already realized … there is no “normal.” Welcome to being a human being.

I am sure there are people in your world you might perceive as “normal,” right at this moment – maybe they are folks you look up to. However, if you had the chance to spend a little more time talking to them, their significant others, their friends and their families – yeah, not so normal.

We are all human beings … this is liberating and powerful … perfect in our imperfectness … beautiful in our messiness. Let’s just remember that each of us – in our own unique way – is an artist, capable of creating and re-creating ourselves with every breath, in any moment and with every hour, on any given day.

So let’s breathe into awareness. Let’s carefully choose the words we will use today to communicate with friends, family, colleagues, neighbors – just as a painter would select colors to brush onto a canvas. This way, we are consciously living from a place that aligns with our deepest values – and inspiring others to do the same.

I am grateful for your reading. If you enjoy, please share! Thank you…