Walking back to me

Sometimes I wonder what the problem was, I thought the problem was that I really didn’t understand them. I never really felt like I was a part of them, like I was accepted. It felt like they treated each other as real “family” and that I should be thankful I was even invited to witness their bond, like I was an audience member to their show, I was valued because they liked a crowd. Most of my life I thought this dynamic was my fault, that I wasn’t worthy of their consideration. I now realize the problem hasn’t been me understanding them, I understand them. The problem is they don’t know or understand me, they only know the version of me I had to be so they would accept me. It’s the version of me that was a reflection of them and at some point I stopped knowing myself. And that has been lonely. That version of me is gone, the version who is ok with being treated as an after thought, and now I’m walking back towards myself,  the person I was before I distorted myself to fit in, as I walk away from them, I heal my relationship with me.

For the love of trees

If there is any living thing on earth that actively wants to live among humans it's trees.

The photo above is of a huge maple that was in front of our first house. We lived in a city so buying a house with a big tree allowed me to connect with nature at the time, it had huge branches that we let grow low enough that we could lift our kids up to touch them, my kids played under its shade. We had bird feeders in our yard so birds would nest in the maple, you could hear and sometimes see cicada on them, and at night the fireflies would glow among its leaves . Every year the tree would shower our yard in helicopter seeds, and little trees would sometimes sprout.

Trees find a way even in a busy city to grow, it's like they want to take over and have us living among them, and sometimes I wish we would let them .

In gratitude to nature

When you live with a condition like bipolar getting out in nature is extremely healing, but for me it isn't always possible.

I LOVE nature. If you spend anytime online you'll see people love nature, I think it's just something in us as humans, we are connected to it, it's a soul gift.

Instagram makes me feel like I have to post daily photos of me in nature to prove how much I love it.

The truth is with my mental illness I don't get outside everyday, sometimes I can barely get to my couch, but this is also true, every day nature gives me a bit of hope. Birds out my windows, the sound of the wind through the trees. I often sit in my yard in the grass and just be, there is no photo, but I always see something beautiful or interesting and it connects with something in me and gives me hope.

For this I am grateful to nature