The Chelsey Diaries

***Spoiler Alert*** I didn’t wear pants practically the whole time. 

When Friday rolled around and the plans I had made got pushed to Sunday, I sulked. Only for a hot second, though, then I realized that a weekend alone would be good! I had some DIY’s I wanted to do and I needed to go through my Tupperware drawer…you know, things we all need to do but put off for as long as possible, hoping someone will just end up doing it for us.

Did I want my Friday plans to happen? Absolutely (it was suppose to be a best friend sleepover complete with no pants, pizza, wine, snacks, wine, candy and more wine) but I am also a sucker for being alone and I was really looking forward to getting some things  done. So, naturally, once I knew I had the evening free, I told my sister I would hang out with my nephew so her and her fiance could go on a date (I am even more of a sucker for my thunder chunk of a nephew than I am for alone time).
But when I finally got home Friday night, I made all sorts of plans in my head for the wonderful, non working days ahead. Oh how my thoughts were filled with getting this done and that done, spending (x) amount of time writing, having a bath, doing some yoga, going for a run, getting ready for the week to come, finishing reading Pride and Prejudice(for the 3rd time) and maybe watching a horror movie or two.
I had it all planned out.
Two whole days.
And it looked glorious..on paper.

Saturday morning started with all the coffee, the way all mornings should, and then I slowly got to work. With music or a T.V series that i’ll never admit to or else it would show my terrible taste in entertainment, in the background, I built, I hung, I wiped, I vacuumed, I purged, I danced, I folded and when 5pm hit, I realized that I had yet to do one thing that I didn’t want to do that day. The feeling was euphoric.

Sunday was much the same; my plans got cancelled and I chose to relish in the silence. I did leave the house to grocery shop (had to wear pants for that, lame), but I spent the majority of the day doing “nothing” and letting my phone fall to the wayside.

Sunday got dark, however, as day two’s of uninterrupted “me time” often do. But instead of reeling in the fact that I have no friends, I’m awful to be around, I’m lazy and unmotivated, I’m ugly and fat and dumb and no wonder no one loves me (at least-that’s what my self doubt, ego, anxiety and depression like to tell me), my darkness turned inward.
It’s opaqueness was welcome; it always is. I feel like I am living an unbridled truth when things go dark. But this time, instead of crumbling, yearning or breaking, I was thinking, or… more accurately,. I was unthinking.

I watched behind my eyes as the yarn of time and space unravelled and I saw myself holding the string. I didn’t feel like I was conjuring these thoughts and yet I was having them. I knew I wasn’t creating this experience; my consciousness was.
I sat quietly, eyes closed, heartbeat slow and steady, and let my truth, the darkness, the pain, the love, the loneliness, the courage, the fear, muddle around until it took shape, like a wave-particle being measured. It formed. It became me. I know this to be certain: I am not be my fear, or my pain, or my love, or my courage.
But those things are me. They exist because I will them to.

And in my darkness I saw them for what they are; things of which I have control, even when I don’t think that I do.

I often say that when Lilee-baby died, I died too. And even though my physical body did not parish, I lost everything in side of me. Like Lord Voldemort after his unsuccessful unforgivable curse on baby harry, I became a spec of life; too tiny to see with the naked eye. Muscle memory and basic primitive survival kept my legs moving, heat beating and eyes blinking. I knew who I was and who I thought people needed me to be so that their grief could be manageable. I knew all this but I walked around as a shell, a Chelsey Suit, if you will- which is, at least, cuter than an Edger Suit-, feeling less and less like an actual living thing with every day. The only time I could feel alive was when I was  grieving, because that was the only little bit that I had left inside. But as my guts started to reappear (not the functional guts, those were fine, but the guts that matter. The guts that say “oooo!! thats funny!! laugh!!’ and “yup, tacos really are the best things ever” The ones that make your heart beat harder when you love the people around you, and the ones that send happy tingles through your body when the sun kisses your skin. Those guts.) When they started to come back, they mixed in with my guilt and my grief.
They still do.
My positive emotions and my grief are two sides of the same coin and they always will be~life of the bereaved.
But this weekend, as I sat in my palace of despair and concluded that I have a choice, it made grieving and guilt separate. It made happiness and guilt separate. It made love and guilt separate. There hasn’t been one day over the past 3 years that I have been able to walk this life without guilt.

When I realized that I have control of who I am and how I feel, I lost the constant need to apologize for it.

I am going to grieve.

I am going to be happy.

I am going to be inconsolably sad.

I am going to be angry as hell.

I am going to love.

I am going to lust.

I am going to hate.

I am going to be social

I am going to be antisocial

I am going to be soft

and sometimes I am going to be hard.

But from now on, with blood, sweat, tears and curse words, I am going to fight like hell to not feel guilty for who I am in any given moment.

We are complex, us humans.
We are manoeuvring this world with the “why” and no earthly chance of learning the “because.” And we work hard. And we love hard. And we Fall even harder and then we get up and we do it all again.That is amazing. We are amazing. And how ever you choose to be your amazing self, I’m cool with. I believe you will act with the mindfulness of respect to other living beings, so act on. Be weird. Be crazy. Be the girl who falls in love with everyone. Be the man who cries on a whim. Be the person that swears they can see someones aura or the one who chooses to travel instead of work. Be the successful entrepreneur go-getter-badass or be the one who is totally fine working the same job for 50 years. Be the white picket fence or be the black Lamborghini. Hell, be both! Be whoever it is you want to be, but do it because your heart is telling you its right. And even better yet, be the soul that changes. Like the person who wants to be a famous successful writer one day and a recluse on a beach in a shabby house in paradise, living each day as it comes with only memories of the past and no plans for the future, the very next.

We are here to help each other experience this life, not to tell them they should be one way or another.  We are the universal ‘we’ and it is our divine right to control how we want to be. I will not be held to expectations of me, because I am not holding others to them either.

I hold the end of the yarn.

I am graciously, courageously and solely responsible for this life of mine. and you, my loves, are responsible for yours.

All it took was a weekend of dropped plans, a couple glasses of wine and a little bit of darkness to accept it.

close your eyes, see what your soul wants to show you.

Chelsey xo