I fall in love with the sky sometimes dozens of times a day, wanting to catch every iteration of its constantly evolving identity. I watch my own evolution likewise fascinated.

I’m sick of fear.
Sick of holding tight.
Sick of missing out on joy.
So I will fling out my arms
and choose to be free.
Choose to feel the thrills.
Choose to feel everything.
Even fear—for a moment.
Not letting it win.
In that paradox
there’s hope.
Let me relax into miracles.
Let me savor each surprise.
Let me bliss out
on every ride, carefree.
Trusting that it’s safe
to love life.

“I picked this for you,” she told me
as she ran up to present a yellow gift
in her outstretched palm.
We were walking through a field,
our party of twelve scattered,
and she’d been so busy with cousins
that I’d barely seen her in days.
They’d been hard days for me,
processing past griefs
and dispelling future fears
with little success,
trying to center in the present
while away from home,
trying to focus on beauty
and time with family
despite the blurriness of tears.
Her gift was unexpected
and wonderful.
At eight, how much longer
will she bring me stubby blooms?
I want to cherish every one.
“I love you even more than flowers,”
she added fervently.
I hugged her.
Tight.
“I love you more than flowers too.”

This is social media.
Is it real?
Is it fake?
Is art a fiction?
Is fiction also true?
Is a smiling post a lie
if it blurs out hardships
in the background?
Is joy still joy
in the midst of heartbreak?
Is it possible to feel
hopeful and awful at once
but focus on the hope?
Is perspective a choice?
Is truth relative?
Is reality ever really #nofilter?
Is it all of the above?
Perhaps.

Queen,

Claim sovereignty
of your heart,
even if it’s a muddy place
flooded by sorrows.

Deem yourself worthy
of respect and autonomy.
Draw your boundaries
like lines on a map.
Declare allegiance
to supreme intuitive power.
Establish the firm peace
of loving self-governance.
Exult in the beautiful mess
of human existence.
Exalt the mud into marvel
and the raindrops into joy.

You will slip at times.
You will fall or fail
and stand up again
stained and weary
but no less of a ruler
if you esteem
inherent authority
and deep compassion
above expectations
of jewels or crowns
or spotless velvet robes.

Anything you lose
to the soul-sucking muck
of bleak circumstance
you can redeem tenfold
when grace enfolds you.

Your coronation happens
the day you decide to reign
over your own happiness.

I lost myself
in the push
of trying to be
what others need
and found myself
in the power
of needing to be
what feels true

We clambered up steep inclines
with loose rocks tumbling down
behind us, the gravelly surfaces
refusing our feet any security
as we skidded with each step.

Up we continued anyway,
strangely determined.

We found a sandy trail carved
into cliffsides by past rivulets,
its spongy softness far from firm
but easier to cross as we snaked
higher than fear should allow.

Down we glanced anyway,
strangely undeterred.

We reached what seemed the top,
cavernous walls curving over us,
no farther to climb until my oldest
ventured out to the visible edge
and went over and beyond it.

Beyond we followed anyway,
strangely undaunted.

We met the clouds face to face,
took in the tininess of humans
in the panorama of big-picture
perspective, felt the exhilaration
of attaining incredible heights.

Back we trekked anyway,
strangely done.

We slipped and slid along
the route we’d come, our
feet no surer, our backsides
dusty, our hearts happy
to have made the climb.

Sit with it.
Let raw emotions wash over you
like blue moonlight.
Each sensation will expose you
more and more
like a waxing lunar orb—
your vulnerability growing wider
day by day, night by night,
until you shine with wholeness.

But that’s too much to bear for long.
Soon you’ll vanish back
into your own safe darkness.
Wishing not to be seen.
Wanting to hide for a time
behind a curtain of familiar feelings
you’ll blanket around yourself
for security and space.
Waiting to resurface from the depths
of your own psyche.

Allow that to be what it is.
The phases are in your nature too.
It’s in your nature to feel it all.

Make peace with that,
and perhaps you’ll feel the wonder
of being alive.

I’m in a new relationship.
Just at the beginning.
Not sure yet where it leads.

She’s more than I expected.
Funnier.
Flirtier.
Sexier.
More confident.
Good at boundaries.
Quick to forgive.
Slow to sweat the small stuff.

Still, she startles me sometimes.
I didn’t know her anger could be
so explosive or her tears so sudden.
I didn’t know she was both
iron tough and thin-skin fragile.
I didn’t know she could feel
so happy and alive—so radiant.

I wonder where she came from.
What transformed her.
Why I’ve met her only now at 39.

Who’s to say which influence,
which coincidence, which
serendipitous happenstance
altered her course?

I only know I like her—
this new me.

If you tell the story backwards,
It makes sense.
The destination—
Half chosen, half inevitable—
Explains the path and the start.
We say, “Oh!
All that came before
Led me here.
All I am now
Is why the twists and turns
Were what they were.
It had to be as it was.”
When you look back
At your life,
You’ll see.