Here.

I stopped writing a while ago, subconsciously perhaps protecting my privacy and the other half just life being busy busy busy. This is where I go to think, after a long day and I need to write it out. This is where I go to process and work through and find me. I've had the luxury of close friends and best friends to process and love on and celebrate, but I miss the writing. The documenting. The lookback at the steps and to see how far I've come and where life has gone and how incredibly somewhat mind-blowing it all unfolds.

This weekend was beautiful. This weekend was special and awesome and heart.explode. kinda good. This weekend, we celebrated two years, and this weekend, we celebrated how far we have come and how much we have grown. I wrote, 10 months ago, in a completely different place. Scared, unsure, unwilling to budge and unwilling to move, but here we are. Here we are and we are stronger than ever before and we have dug in, clung on, and made permanent imprints. I am proud, and I am grateful, and I am excited.

"It's not an if but a when"

What an incredible thing to be able to say of your relationship. What an incredible feeling to be loved and to love on patiently, kindly, gently. He gets my crazy, and in all the crazy of crazies, I get his too. We try, and we make mistakes, and sometimes, we get angry with each other but at the end of the day, two tickles and apologies that are sincere, we talk. We talk until the cows come home and we work it out, we're in this, for the long haul, and so we learn, we pack away, we start again, we hold on tighter.

I wasn't looking for this when I met him. I'm not even sure that I knew exactly what I was looking for. I had no clue this would be this important and significant. I had no clue we were forever and now I am so thankful that I didn't. Because it made us, us. Friends, lovers, fighters, doers.

I wrote this, this weekend and posted it. 45 likes later and I still mean every word.

"Two years ago today, I accidentally met a boy in a seedy bar.

At first, he was my only friend that was tall enough to help me change lightbulbs plus he volunteered his washer and dryer so I didn't have to scrounge up 1000 quarters to do the 16 loads of laundry that I was stockpiling.

He'd crash our sushi parties, and we both learned a whole new world from each other like never being able to reach the top aisle at the grocery store if you're short or how having long legs is not a bonus when you're trying to fit into a car.

Some nights, after a crazy night out with friends, we would call each other and stay up too late playing 'guess what happened today' or 'ohmygodihavetotellyouastory'. Another night, on a whim, we drove all around Springfield trying to find the house with best Christmas lights.

The first time he asked me out, I turned him down and he made me watch the tackiest 80s movie(Big Trouble in Little China) in retaliation.

During hell week(retail at Christmas!!), he would surprise me and the girls at work with lattes or warm dinners. In turn, he let me try out new recipes on his stomach of steel. Some were successful and some, well, he just thanked me for with a big smile.

The first time I knew I was in love with this silly goody two shoes nerd boy was when I saw this picture of us at a party. From the outside looking in, there was no denying that we thought the world of each other. He had captured my heart by being my friend first and I had the hugest school girl crush.

We went on a phenomenal first date but then I broke his heart by moving halfway across the world six months later. So he quit his job, sold his house, gave away the dog he loved, said bye to all his friends and family to come start a dream with me.

He is my best friend, my partner-in-crime, my pasar malam buddy, and he reminds me of all that is good in the world.

He makes me stupid proud and has the best heart. He lets me be, do, try, dream and when I am scared and insecure, he holds me and reminds me that I am enough.

Mr K, thank you for being you, thank you for that smile bigger than your face can contain and thank you for being there on a random cold night at a seedy bar 2 years ago.

You are my peanut to my buttaahhh and I'm glad we have us. :)

I love you and thanks for the perfect anniversary date."

And it was perfect. And magical. And as we walked back to the car after Stomp! followed by a fancy dinner and drinks at an even fancier lounge with an incredible view of the city, it was raining. And so we sang singing in the rain and held hands, running and laughing and trying to make it back to the car in one piece.

These are what dreams are made of.

And today, at a meeting that determines so much, he was next to me, as we discussed and figured out and I was floored again of how God has a plan if I just keep the faith and hold on. Dream big little girl, dream big, dream loud, take a deep breath and believe. So many things are happening and they are special and good and overwhelming, and over dinner, we squeal and we laugh and I share all my hopes and dreams and he just smiles and says, I got you, babe.

"The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams."

~ Oprah

First day of 5th grade.

Last year today, was hard.

I was still heartbroken and hurt. I was still struggling with the whys and the hows and the what nows. Still trying to figure out the boundaries and the lines drawn, trying to make sense of what was left of my relationship with you and trying to grieve the relationship that was.

This year, I'm in a good place, and the picture your mom put up this morning made me smile. I still miss you, and I always will, but moving on and letting go does not mean I forget.

And this year, like all the others before and all the others to come, I wish you have a great school year, and you make good choices, and you build friendships with incredible people that will become your soul sisters with whispers and secrets and that 'catch you when you fall', 'make you laugh so hard you pee in your pants', 'love you so hard you feel so incredibly lucky' way that best friends do.

This year, I am excited and so incredibly proud of you.

This year, I smile and wish you so well.

This year, I cheer from the sidelines.

Quietly.

Appreciatively.

From a distance.

Happy first day of 5th grade, stinker.

"We learn by doing." - Aristotle

Hold On.

Shutter. Click. Breathe.

I haven't picked up my camera in over a year. I think I've forgotten how it feels in my hands, the solid heaviness of clicking and focusing and finding moments in little things. I think I've lost it, I think I lost it in the divorce. In the heartache and the pain, in the things I didn't want to capture and in the emotions that were too raw to be displayed.

Because photography for me was an escape, a safe place, a place to work it out and find god in the things forgotten and in the things unseen. It was a place to be stripped and honest and bare, and I'm not sure what happened, I'm not sure what went wrong or what my subconscious said to my conscious but I haven't picked up my camera in over a year.

Maybe even two.

Sure, I take daily photos with insta.gram and hisptamatic and it is fun and silly and special. I take daily reminders of the good that happened that day or a funny for a laugh later on. I capture moments to be shared with my boyfriend that lives halfway across the world, it is my way of saying, look, I brought you with me, I'm sharing this memory with you. I do that, and I love it, and I have a collection of the everyday things that make my heart smile or jogs a memory or creates a new marker in this chapter that I am in.

...but it isn't the same.

And I don't know if I am afraid or scared of what I will find or what I won't find, I don't know if it it's because it was my escape for so so long and so the very act of doing it takes me back to a place that I am struggling to let go and dying to let go of.

I don't know if it's because the girl behind the lens is no longer the same and the pictures that I am taking and the people that I am photographing and the landscape that I am capturing has all changed so dramatically and crazily.

I don't know if it is the intimacy of being that raw and honest that is holding back. I don't know if like other things, if this divorce has robbed me of the ability to trust and let go. I enjoy my privacy, and I enjoy my walls. They are perhaps not entirely healthy, but they keep me safe.

So I'm giving myself a timeline, a chance, a challenge.

I'm giving myself a push.

I stumbled onto a website of someone that gets it, someone that understands the power of a photograph and the magic that happens when you capture. And she made a list, of 100 things to do. And somewhere, something clicked.

I'd like to take pictures again.

That's somewhere close to the top of my list.

I'd like to learn to take pictures again.

And the other 99 things, the other 99 things will come I'm sure.

But this, this sparks something in deep my soul.

This makes me believe I can.

This makes me believe I will.

This makes me believe that I am not lost, not broken, not forever changed and scarred, but growing, but evolving, but figuring my way out...slowly but surely.

This gives me my happy for today.

And it's a small step, it's whispering an intention, then wanting to take it back almost immediately after, it is a tentative dip to test the waters.

And I am breathing.

I can do this.

Someday, I'm going to take pictures again.

These are my people.

These are some of my best friends, my people. The ones I call when my world falls apart and the ones that remind me that I am stronger than I think I am.

These are the ones that make me laugh so hard I'm afraid unmentionable liquids will shoot out of my nose and that I may never look at something the same way again.

They are the ones that will get an inside story a split second after it has occurred and either carry it with them to their grave or remind me of it,every single time they can, of that one time I...

They are my people, my emergency contact in a foreign land and my surrogate family on a holiday far away from home.

They are my strongest supporters and my biggest opponents when I am about to do something stupid. They are brave, and they are fighters. They will find the voice I don't have and speak the words I can't.

They will take your drunk sorry ass home, hold your hair back as you pray for mercy, and they will change you into your pjs and leave water and Tylenol on your bedstand for when you hate God, the world, yourself and everything in between the next morning.

They are the ones that will knock some sense into your head but hear you out as you're bitching about the catastrophe of the day. They will listen to your dreams but more than that, they will believe in it too. And when you can't, or when you're scared and unsure, they will remind you that you are always, always stronger than you think you are.

They embrace my pathetic sense of direction and send me text messages or talk to the cab driver when I am lost and freaking out in the big city.

They will laugh at my sometimes neurotic OCD tendencies yet let me have the seat by the wall and love me even as I am freaking out because ohmylord the grand order of things has been disturbed.

These are my friends, this is the family I choose, and these are my people.

Sent from my iPhone

Privacy.

photo credit : Miss Britt

The hard part is remembering that he manipulated me. And that shocking, unexpected, wake of grief and devastation. That deep in your soul ache hurt that feels like it's permanently made a place in your heart. That drop bottom sinking gut feeling. That betrayal, and it's a lifetime of healing.

Our anniversary was the 28th.

We would have been married for three years.

Instead, I had wisdom teeth surgery.

I voluntarily let someone cut out pieces of my jaw bone and gums to remove impacted teeth that had become a pain in my ass.

I looked like a chipmunk, with a crooked smile, in a haze of painkillers for a couple days.

But that wasn't what hurt the most.

What hurt the most was missing the security of never knowing.

Never knowing that your life can unravel in split second.

Never knowing that your soul is able to be so deeply hurt and torn apart.

I missed her.

I missed the life I had made, fought for, worked through.

I missed the family that I thought I was building and the dreams that I was dreaming.

Some random legal leftover junk cropped up recently, and I was angry all over again. Violated. Frustrated. Annoyed.

I wanted to not be.

I wanted to be unaffected.

I wanted to be over it.

I wanted to just not be.

But I was.

And it hurt.

And it sucked for a little while.

This sudden jolt into your safe place, your sanity coming a little undone, unexpected.

Because he's done it again.

Struck you when you least expected it.

---

I enjoy my privacy. I enjoy my safe circle of friends, and letting in the people that I trust. And when I trust, I truly, really do. And there are no barriers, no filters, no secrets. I am who I am, I am real, I am passionate, and I share.

I am threatened by the possibility of having someone violate this trust. Of having someone betray that trust.

It has happened before.

He smooth talked his way in. He violated that trust. He's good at this. I am not.

It hurt me and cut me deeply, in places that I don't care to revisit. In places that I don't want to confront again.

I am struggling, with the moral issue. Of wanting to forgive, of wanting to be glass half full, of wanting to believe that they are better than this...but I don't trust.

I don't trust.

I enjoy my privacy...and I am struggling with letting them in.

But more so, I am protecting myself.

From him.

It feels wrong but right at the same time.

I can't find the words.

Is it selfish that I want to cut them out of my life?

Is it wrong that I feel bad for wanting to do that?

That it's not a "nice" thing to do?

But the threat, the possibility, the fact that they have betrayed me before...do I trust them to not fall into his web of lies and deceit again?

Accidentally let him know too much about my life and what is going on in it?

Accidentally give him ammo that will threaten this safe place I've found or the security in knowing that I have no connection to him anymore.

that He Cannot Hurt Me Anymore.

It isn't her I'm talking about.

Yes, yes she did it too.

But somehow, I think I trust her again.

She has earned my trust.

Earned my respect.

Earned our friendship back.

She has put in the time, she has taken the hurt, betrayed, anger and built on regaining this friendship.

It is the others.

The other part "his" friends.

The others that just stood aside as he devoured me, and fed him pieces of my soul, and fueled my heartache by feeding him information for him to use against me. Perhaps they did it unknowingly. Perhaps they did it knowingly.

Months later, they wrote and reached out with letters much like hers. Apologizing. Rectifying. Clearing their conscience.

Asking for information. Asking for details. Asking to tell my story....only that they didn't want my story. They wanted the gossip.

They wanted the dirty sordid disgusting details.

Like a soap opera.

Like something on the telly that was entertaining.

I told them the facts, nothing more, nothing less, but something in my gut has always whispered, No.

I didn't get close, but I opened up a door. I said, okay. I relented. I forgave.

But I am afraid, that they are capable of hugging me and stabbing me in the back at the same time.

I call bullshit.

But it is hard, much much too hard, to be this person.

To be this assertive.

To take preemptive measures.

Because nice sunshine and rainbows and roses me always wants to believe in the good of people.

Always wants to give someone the benefit of doubt.

A second chance.

But is this too big a risk?

These are my pictures. This is my life. These are my stories to share or not share.

My privacy.

My choice to disconnect. To cut off all ties from him. To end all communication. To ignore all attempts of communication from him. No matter how hard he tries.

He is someone I don't want in my life.

He is someone that is not healthy for me.

He is someone that I don't feel comfortable having in my life and someone I don't feel safe having in my life.

Is it wrong that they are a casualty in this mess?

That even if they were sincere, that I don't trust them, and I don't want them in my life by default?

Is it wrong that I can't let them in because they go to golf with him and are like putty in his hands?

Because I don't want to be that person.

I don't want to be bitter.

I don't want to be unfriendly.

I don't want to be unfair.

But at the same time, I don't want to be stupid.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

So fucking conflicted.

What bloody now?

"There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time."

~Malcolm X

Hold on to that lovely feeling.

Finished my first module yesterday. An exam that culminated into a celebration of sorts, with new friends and old, in places new and old. I realize that this high, this confidence, can be so addicting. This trying out new things, struggling, struggling, struggling.....then bam, catharsis. The challenge, the overcoming, the digging deep....that, that's a magical and amazing kind of special.

I'm in the thick of things in some projects, in the very beginning humps of others, and I can very closely just touch the end light on a couple. It is all so much but so good at once.

I have so much to say but can't find the right words at the same time. So much to do but at a standstill and lost at times. The hard work, "paying my dues", earning respect and building a foundation...and sometimes, I am scared. And sometimes, I doubt. And sometimes, I am insecure and so very unsure.

This stage of my life is a place that I am so excited to be in at the moment. For once, I feel good enough and confident enough about the things that I do not know and the places that I am going. There is true passion in the things that I do. I am inspired, but more than that, I am fueled with determination and belief. I believe...I believe in this project, I believe in rachealkate, I believe in us, I believe in myself, and that is such a gift.

I don't think I can put into words what it feels like to finally be here.

It's taken me years, and years, and years, of heartache and disappointments, of bad choices and failures, of insecurities and doubt. It has taken me years.

But I am here.

I am here and I am celebrating being here.

I am here and I am putting one foot in front of the other.

Digging deep, and continuing.

A lot like the last 15 minutes of RPM when you are /this/ close to passing out and the trainer tells you to bump the intensity up a notch and you, honest to god, think your heart might burst out of your chest, and that there is absolutely no way your legs and thighs could push any further and dear god you've just realized the existence of about 700 hundred other aching, burning muscles in your butt cheeks.

But you dig deep, you tune out the world and find your beat, you silence your doubts, you suck it in.

That's it.

You suck it all in.

You say, I can, instead of no.

You say, Hells Yes, instead of wtf.

You say, let's do it, and you give it your all.

Your everything.

......and you succeed.

Fuck.

Yes.

"If people believe in themselves, it is amazing what they can accomplish."

~Sam Walton