I’m sitting here eating spaghetti, breathing deep, and trying to fill myself back up. I’ve gone into extreme self care mode after a week that took more than it gave. I don’t mind though, I consider it an act of love towards myself.

I happen to love acts of love whether they are directed inwards or outwards.

My fall has been an exercise in self love and self sufficiency. Learning to nourish a heart that was emptied after an intense grief period. Learning to take the creative energy inside of myself and transfigure it into something beautiful. Learning to become even more comfortable and settled into my solitude as busyness and various projects took many of my usual friendly anchors away from my day to day life.

I guess maybe that sounds a bit lonely to some, but I like to look at it as practicing acts of random kindness towards myself and experiencing my inner strength in action. I ran across this lovely quote from Jane Eyre last night which rung a bell deep within,

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.

It struck me that’s exactly what I’ve been doing in life. Not that I am friendless, for I am deeply grateful for the friendships that add color and care to my life, but more that I am often solitary these days and definitely battle a sense of feeling chronically unsustained.

I think when you are the person who is so sensitive and emotionally intelligent you looked around your family room at age 7, and not only intuited the cracks laying in the dynamic foundations, but had cognitive recognition of these dynamics, in a brain that somehow housed capabilities far beyond it’s developmental age… well I think when you are that person you become used to the struggle to get your emotional needs met.

More simply put, I’ve been emotionally organizing the spaces I occupy since I was 7 years old and am used to trying to feed a malnourished heart.

For a long time I floundered. 32 years of floundering. What I felt inside in no way matched the outside world. I didn’t really know how to develop my inside world, so I learned what I needed to fit externally and did a pretty good job faking normal.

I convinced myself this other part of me was somehow broken, and that the fix was in overcoming my overemotional and deeply analytic nature who seemed to feel too much.

I had yet to really begin the process of self excavation which I would eventually engage. Where I would painfully peel back all the layers I’d used to arm myself for this world, to build a shell to keep my heart from feeling so raw and overexposed.

Not only had I disconnected from the most beautiful part of myself, but I saw that part as a deficit.

There is a lot of stories that occurred in order to get to a place where I did the work of claiming myself and learning to love the parts of myself others don’t always see or understand. They are stories for another day, however. For today, it simply suffices to say I look at the world very differently than yesterday.

Somebody once told me that life seemed harder for me than most. As if this were my fault. What must I be doing wrong to make life so hard? At the time I wondered what was wrong with me.

I now understand I was trying to speak the emotional and spiritual equivalent of Advanced Quantum Physics to individuals who not only don’t know anything exists beyond Basic Algebra, but don’t believe anything exists beyond basic Basic Algebra. And who really don’t care.

This realization did more for developing a sense of nourishing my soul and creating a sustainable lifestyle for myself than anything else.

I have learned to belong deeply to myself and my truth, to honor it with due reverence. Even when it doesn’t match up with how others see things. Especially when it doesn’t match up with how others see things, for that’s usually when the most important breakthroughs are about to happen.

I created a multi dimensional world of wonderful books, imagination, color, magic and vision. It fits better.

Long runs and quiet walks ground me, the trees hold secrets I yearn to know, the mountains echo soul.

My furry sidekick embodies what it is to be loved, he is my ever present.

I learned to speak the language of the tarot and signs and symbols, they comfort me and often make more sense than the words I hear people speak.

The land of creativity has given me an avenue to take how I feel and think on the inside and give them a voice on the outside.

I’ve learned to accept people for themselves and gratefully receive the love that comes my way, as I try and let go of expectations for who people should be and accept the beauty of who people are.

The grace of friendships interrupts my state of solitude, in all the best joyful ways.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever find a partner who is an emotional and spiritual equal. Whether I will belong to something bigger than just myself. A true soulmate who challenges my spirit to grow beyond what it’s capable of alone.

I’ve decided not to worry about this however. I have an intuitive sense this might be a long while and in the meantime I have simply married myself and am far too concerned with embracing the beauty of the Now than worrying about When.

There is something terribly beautiful about this Now and the lessons I’ve learned about nourishing a malnourished heart and finding sustenance within myself. Within the gifts life offers.

I think it makes one feel very, very strong. Even on days where one feels a bit weaker and depleted finding comfort in her spaghetti. Because you know that strong deep inner reserve is always there, and you know it is Real. It has been tested and tried. It has been forged in the fires of love.

And it feels so very beautiful to have complete and utter space to spread my wings and fly where I may.

Nourishing the depths of my heart. Just me.