Today is my 25th birthday and I was inspired by my friend Megan of the Darling Ewe, Melissa of Bubby and Bean, the sweet and beautiful Laura of Violet Bella / Roots and feathers, and the lovely and always inspiring Ez from Ceature Comforts, who introduced me to Jess’ blog MakeunderMyLife where all this got started, and countless, countless others out there getting honest on their blogs this weekend. (All those mentions were a mouth full! Wow.)
I really want to turn a new page in this space and in my life and get honest with you about me.
This post is about acknowledging that although I want to create a positive space full of inspiration, laughs, and uplifting posts on this blog, underneath all that is an imperfect human being with fears, insecurities, loneliness, heart ache, and frustration as well as joy, creativity, understanding, strength, love, and happiness. I want to get to a point were this space truly reflects the humanity in me and honesty is truly the best answer for that.
At times I struggle with what I am going to write about and in order to avoid the topic of myself entirely I either ignore the blog or post curated images from etsy and around the web, things that I like, enjoy, find pretty, would love to own, ect. That’s all fine and dandy and really paints a pretty picture, but sometimes that can be extremely tedious. Especially when all I truly want is this space is for it to feel a little bit like home and be a place I can go to to share my ideas, inspiration, creativity, my heart, and just be me.
I have weblogged for years sharing my poetry, writings, musing, and just honest to god life on an online diary I have had since the 7th grade. I have finally retired that space, but also felt a little ashamed and privatized and password protected the whole thing for fear that just being me, in my own little space might just freak too many people out.
I never want that to happen to this space. That space holds a piece of me and although it is a space i enjoy visiting, I am happy to move on and leave it for just those times when I want or need to go back and visit. The dreams I have for this space are very, very different than the dreams I had for that space. I want this space to be alive and vibrant. Shining with creativity and embracing the raw, realness, and beauty of life. A place for making friends and building relationships, while becoming a stronger person.
I applaud honesty and imperfection and it’s time I give myself room for both on this blog. So here we go, here are some things that I have been afraid to tell you.
||| Sometimes when telling a story I over exaggerate. I always feel incredibly guilty afterwards and either avoid talking to people or skulk around feeling awkward until I’ve told them that I went over board on the details. James has been amazing at helping me with this. He is really good to interjected and help me correct my mistake. It’s not that I mean to lie, I just enjoy story telling and that doesn’t always work when you need to be factual about something.
||| I am a messy germaphobe. I am one of those people who has to scrub the bath tub and toilet every week, but has a hard time hanging up my clothes in the closet or putting away the dishes from the drying rack. I have come to terms with the fact that being clean has nothing to do with being tidy, because lord knows I am not a tidy person, but I have a hand washing complex.
||| Sometimes I am scared that either James or I are sterile and we can’t have children. I know that’s really odd, but after being together for 7 years, with only 6 months of that time was I on birth control. Never getting pregnant can worry a girl who wants to have a family someday. Of course we use protection and we are very responsible, but can we seriously just be responsible and lucky enough not to have any accidents? Knock on wood. I am by no means ready to have children yet, but I do sometimes worry why we haven’t accidentally gotten pregnant when it seems like everyone around us has.
||| I hardly ever shave my legs or armpits unless I am visiting someone or going to an event were that type of behavior might make someone uncomfortable. James isn’t always a fan, but he still loves me. I am a very hygienic person and this has nothing to do with laziness. It is all personal preference. I will be honest and say that sometimes I do enjoy shaving, but for the most part I could live quite comfortably in a world where it doesn’t exist. That’s just me though.
||| I am an English major who can sometimes majorly suck at grammar and spelling. I know that’s blasphemous, but for some reason my little mind just doesn’t catch it sometimes. This is something I am actively working towards improving and hope I get better with age.
||| I have had some serious body issues growing up. I even battled an eating disorder when I was a teenager. I have struggled with loving and accepting my body for a long time. I still don’t love my body, but my view and acceptance has gone full circle. I now appreciate and care for my body the way I should, even if I’m not perfect and there are things I’d still like to improve, but I can see that there are many amazing and beautiful things about myself that I love.
||| I love methodological processes and have a system for doing even the smallest tasks in my life. I could blame it on OCD and it probably is a form of that, but I have always been much more comfortable when I can do things following my own rules and method. Not to say I am not adaptable, despite this trait I am, for the most part, a very laid back person. I just like things, done, uh…my way.
||| James and I have really struggled financially for the last few years. The last two years especially, since I’ve been unable to work. We have been surviving off of James’ single minimum wage income. Which is totally doable, and we are very fortunate to have that and be able to afford a roof over our heads. We have become very good at going without and at pinching our pennies. We even eat healthy and still eat cheaply. The good news is the only debt we do have are my student loans as we don’t have or use credit cards. We’ve never owed back rent, or had to borrow money and we are quite grateful for that. We’ve been able to just scrape by and it’s been, for the most part, a pretty positive experience.
||| I am a memory hoarder. Though, ironically, I can’t remember whose blog I read that phrase on, but when I read it I identified with it immediately. I have saved every note, ticket stub, receipt, gum wrapper, tag, napkin, you name it, from my little life’s experiences. I even save the toilet paper rolls, okay so maybe that isn’t memory hoarding, or if it is….uh….Maybe I am just a hoarder.
There, what a sigh of relief. In writing this post I actually feel uplifted and inspired by myself. That’s a pretty cool feeling.
It feels good to share pieces of you and just get those secrets out there in the open. If you too are inspired to get honest please feel free to share with in the comments or in your own blog post. If you do write a post please come back and share it below. Also head over to Ez’s post to see all the amazing link ups to other blogs who participated. It’s time we give fear and honesty a little credit around the old interwebs.
It’s now time for me to be honest with those dishes I’ve been avoiding in the kitchen.
Happy Monday and a very merry unbirthday to you!
Hillery
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1. Breath taking photograph of tulip fields below Mt. Hood. Entitled: Tulips Below the Volcano. 
2. The stunning and colourful terraced riced fields in Yunnan, China. Image via: 
handmake my life 