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I live life on one volume. Loud. Loud pulses through every fiber of my being and every beat of my heart. I talk loud, I laugh loud, I love loud and my presence is loud. I’m loud when I walk, talk, teach, cry, type, and cheer. I dream on full blast, have a concert in my car each morning and dance to the music as it reverberates below my feet. For heavens sake, I’ve even been told I smile loud and whisper loud. Loud is the soundtrack that my world turns to. For 27 years, living alive is living loud. My truest self, my most sincere me has always danced through the world this way. No one needs to worry when I’m loud. No, nothing is wrong, no, I’m not yelling, no, I’m not angry, it’s quite the opposite. Everything is just right! I’m loving life so much it bursts at my seams in loud squeals of excitement and delight. It’s the absence of loud when the warning siren is the loudest.

This year has been the silent suffering of not being able to live loud. Something that has never served to be a hardship for me before, is now something I fight to see glimpses of everyday. Since March I’ve been struggling with intense and at times unbearable back pain. What once was just pain sitting in my lower spine has now poisoned its way down my legs, knees, ankles and feet. To the point where pushing on a gas pedal sends a crushing pain through my feet. My natural state of energizer bunny status now needs a nap and recharge by 8:00 A.M. I have found more revival in scorching, hot baths to alleviate pain and curling up in bed, than a happy hour drink with the dearest friends, dancing around my room and Friday night shenanigans. I’ve been a piece in the game of medical/ health care Jumanji, where each level is just as frustrating as the first. I am thrown from “Congrats! you have a disc disease! Move up two spaces”, to the wild card of “nope, not Sciatica, nope not a kidney disease” to a “oh no! The doctors scanned the wrong part of your body in your MRI, go back to start”. To only circle my way back to beginning all over again at level one with a round about session of how-many-departments-can-I-get-transferred-to-on-my-lunch-break- to-book-an-appointment…ready, set, go! What an adrenaline rush these days.

One by one, branches of what living loud means to me have been stripped away. Infamous surprise trips cancelled, bachelorette parties missed, dancing days dwindling to none, absent from weddings, and empty bleachers and sidelines of cheering on friends and students. I miss my loud, people-filled days while bouncing around from one passion to the next. I yearn for it with all of me. I ache for it everyday. Surprisingly enough, I’m not here to write a complaint letter, nor detailed play-by-play of my current standing with my health issues. I’m here with the testimony of who loved me…loves me loud through the silence.

I’m lucky enough to have been invited into the most welcoming, small group of humans at work to sister through life with. We are a collection of beauty, talents, walks of life, Jericho’s and the perfect blend of adventure seekers, life navigators through our 20s, birthday celebrators, loud life livers (ME) and quiet, graceful wisdom givers (NOT ME). They have been the best love-filled gift since moving back to San Diego.

I recall sitting at a happy hour in a booth at our home away from home, Slater’s 50/50 this past May cheersing over the last weeks of the 2020-2021 school year, while giggling over our students and dating. As the conversation shifted we went around the table and shared what our stone was.

CONTEXT PAUSE: What this meant for us was referring to when something is wrong, really, really wrong, how can us as friends identify this behavior when all we feel like doing is hiding.

I shared that my stone is isolation and quietness. They’ll know something is wrong, if my classroom door is closed during the day and I fall silent. I was the type of teacher who kept her classroom door open to shout “HI”, “HAVE A GREAT DAY”, HAPPY FRIYAY“ at anything passing by my door that breathed . So, for my door to be shut was a red flag. Soaking in that present moment, and sitting in gratitude of these ordained friendships, I assumed those days would be far and few between, and certainly far down the road from that May evening.

As the Summer took off, I busied myself with my loud life by tutoring, teaching summer school, vacationing to Chicago and two more jobs for the year, while my pain accompanied me without an invite. My symptoms grew more severe, more frequent and urgent care and ER trips were part of the routine some weeks. I tried living loud and loving loud to have that serve as my constant. My never-changing joy that made me feel well, me in a time I physically didn’t and don’t feel like me. By August, my loud living, was a crumbling skeleton I was grasping to by every disintegrating bone. I refused to let this be seen. I denied this part of my reality for as long as possible out of the sheer love I had for this part of me and what it brings to the table of life and relationships. Instead, I started closing my door.

I started closing my door more, then locking it, then turning off my lights inside as the the chaos of the year picked up. I went to work and like Cinderella bolted when the clock struck 3:00 PM to the next job or to-do, or doctor’s appointment, or bed. There was no more dancing, but there were many more “no, I’m sorry I can’t make it” e-mails and texts and last minute “no” RSVPs sent in. It was easier to pretend ride out the volume of last year’s loud living behind a door, than going to confession of this year’s struggle to find it at all. It was easier to bury myself in work than to walk down the hall to my sister fam and confess “I’m throwing my stone. The blend I brought to our friendship, the loudness within me, pain robbed me of it and I don’t know how get it back.” It felt like a significant piece of me was missing, it still does. However, serendipitously, as the loud always takes note of the quiet, the quiet notices the loud. More importantly, the absence. That’s when Mollee’s music played.

Amidst this beautiful group of friends I hold dear, you’ll find the sister of my soul, Mollee. The most radiant being who is keeper of the gentlest soul, yet touches the world with the most profound power. The softest heart with the strongest back to hold herself up tall against all. The epitome of carrying heavy loads with graciousness, living lightly, and makes it look like loving others is the most effortless thing she’s been doing her whole, dang life. Bearing witness to her move through the world with this power she harnesses is an honor that leaves me in awe. She quietly kicks serious ass, before anyone even has the chance to notice or blink and runs through walls for her tribe in the stillness of darkness. Her love is in the details- simply, purely, and drenched with humility and intentionality. She makes a big splash in this world, and doesn’t need to “turn up” the volume to do it. It’s the most captivating view to watch this play out and to marvel in as her friend. When it’s absent from our friend group, or my day, my heart is the first to take note. I notice something important is missing. Something that matters is lacking. I’ve internally labeled this greatness within her as “Mollee’s Music”. A song in my life I treasure so deeply, that when it’s not playing I’m searching for it. Parallel to my loudness, her quiet beauty is a sound I miss when I can’t hear it.

Mollee’s music is the gentle knock on my door on a random Monday morning dropping in to say “hello” and “I love you”. You’ll know it by the sounds of our much needed giggles on our classic date at Wings n Things. It sounds like after school quiet conversations about all of life’s greatest secrets we’re still trying to crack. It’s handing me a coffee on a Friday morning where I haphazardly burst through her door after a tough week, when the punchline is she doesn’t even like coffee to begin with. It’s planning my surprise birthday celebration, when hours earlier she welcomed me collapsing to my knees in her classroom and holding me through tears after a horrible teacher moment. Her music sounds like leaving post-it notes on my desk just because, and continuously inviting me to church despite the fact that 90% of the time I can’t tag along. Her melody sounds like being a life witness and safe haven on an impossible anniversary of conquering fears and days of laying on my classroom floor in crippling pain. Her chorus is a smile in the hallway and instructing her firsties to wish me to “have a great day Ms. Barnes”. Her lyrics are found in all of what she does, but the instrumentals are found in all of who she is. The lingering note is heard in her quietness that commands the world’s attention. Each hum of her harmony is found in her patience that never hurries or rushes. Nothing is an inconvenience, but everything yields at the convince of loving others well. Her tenderness is loud, but the delivery is soft. It’s the sweet sound of all of this compiled and mixed into the quietness and stillness of life. In the middle of the mundane, behind closed doors, on a random weekday, when there’s nothing to celebrate and no special occasion. When there is nothing to cheer about, no season of winning, merriment or triumphant milestone that calls for celebration. It’s in the lack of noise, I hear Mollee’s music the loudest. It’s her music that I find comfort and even peace in my absence of loudness. It’s her music that reminds me I’m not forgotten even though there’s a piece of me that still feels like a phantom pain of forgotten. Her presence is the sound that miracles are everywhere. I turn up Mollee’s music louder these days, and I’m just grateful she just keeps inviting me to hear her song.

I’m devastated to not being living loud (for now), and am still a little lost trying to navigate what loud looks like for me these days. Nevertheless, what I know is this:

I’m not sure if I wasn’t forced to stop living so loud, I would have been able to soak in and live out the bridge of Mollee’s music. The song she just calls her life, and maybe her own cover of living alive, but the album that I would title “love”. I’m not physically dancing much anymore, or at all, but I continue to twirl round and round to Mollee’s music, and the volume is up as loud as can be. Mollee heard me the loudest when I stopped being loud.

Keep singing your song Mols okay? I’ll keep playing it loud. I love you the loudest of all.

I don’t know much. Shhh, but don’t tell my students. I’m not ready for the jig to be up yet.  I only know what I know, and my most unfiltered, raw and authentic writing, that looks the most like me, that makes me go “there I am”, always comes from my truth.  This probably isn’t the most riveting or intellectual attention getter to start with in order to instill credibility, but it’s true, and true is not synonymous with perfect.  One thing I know is how to sister.  Which is ironic and hilarious considering I am biologically an only child.  I know, it’s confusing. Have I gained credibility yet?  Give me a chance though! What I know is  “sister” is a noun, but sistering is a verb. 

The word sister alone is a noun.  A female who shares one or both parents in common with each other.  When “sister” is a noun and stays a noun, it sounds like a club you have to be invited to.  You know, you have to be “on the list” to be a sister, but no one decides for you, not even you!  When you change the part of speech from a noun to a verb though, sister transforms into sistering. A verb.  An action humanity tangibly sees through life witnessing and love. 

When I was younger I LONGED for a sister.  When Santa Clause didn’t drop one off from his sled after leaving his cookie crumbs and place her under my tree after the second year I asked for one, I radically accepted that I would never gain the title of sister.  Disappointed as my 7 year old self was to not find my highly anticipated sister wrapped in a pretty bow under my lit up tree, I was more saddened by the reality that I would never have the opportunity to step into the role of being a sister.  It was a loneliness that even at 7 years old was able to sober me out of my day dreams of secret swapping, drying tears and slamming doors  through teenage years, eye rolling at what our parents said and speaking the language of facial expressions that only we would be able to translate.  I felt cheated from one of life’s greatest blessings and never fully understood why I was exempt from this piece of identity.   I was a deeply feeling human from the start, what can I say!

Fast forward 19 years later, I am 26 at a job I’m extremely passionate about, surrounded by people I am left awe struck by.  I am privileged enough to have a group of gals here who see me, know me, make me laugh until I cry (ALL the time) and love me well.  We were all unwinding from our day, strands of hair falling from our ponytails, slumped over on desks, laughing about something our sweet cherubs said or did that day.  Spring break is around the corner, (all the praise hands), and we pop-corned around announcing our plans.  When it’s my turn my eyes widen and my voice increased 5 octaves because trying the keep the excitement inside of me is just too much of an ask.  I report that I plan on surprising one of my dearest and treasured friends from college.  Now, if you know me literally at all, you know I take surprising people as serious and joyous as a football player takes the Super Bowl.  Imagining the prospect of hugging my friend tight in such a short time span after such a long duration apart has me on my toes (no, literally).  My reactions are nothing but the most genuine and authentic reflexes I can offer to my friends and the world.  I love my people so big.  I can’t help it, contain it or keep it in the confinement of just my heart. It overflows out of me.   One of my new friends turns to me and states “You know, it makes sense to me why you don’t have siblings.  You don’t need to have any siblings because you’re a sister to all, to everyone”.   This stops me in my tracks.  My heart has just been sucker punched by a love bomb.  A compliment that shook my core and awakened the light in that 7 year old disappointed girl on Christmas morning.  7 year old Samantha looked up from the kitchen table with the look of “wait, I am invited to be a sister?” I still soak in every word sweet Kayla spoke over me that day.  It has followed me weeks later and has me all wrapped up in the person who first taught me about sistering.  I RSVP’d a loud and exciting “HELL YEAH” to sistering when I met Kati.

There’s this heart melting and simultaneously almost eye-roll worthy, cheesy show titled “Alexa & Katie”. I haven’t seen the series myself, but recognize it by this audio clip that keeps sneaking on to my TikTok feed no many how many times I refresh it.  The words blare through my AirPods: “Four years later I am grateful for more than things than I could ever imagine. But mostly for the person who was by my side for all of it.  Some people are lucky enough to have a best friend, I’m even luckier…I got a Katie” I feel this sound clip with every fiber of my being because…

I have a Kati.  She taught me everything I know about sistering by being one to me. 

I am currently drowning in my favorite sweatshirt with the beautiful two words embroidered “You’re invited” on the front with a table above, while writing this.  I embrace and welcome this sweatshirt to swallow me up after every hard day.  It is one of my favorite forms of self care, as I feel like I’m letting Kati in, who is behind the creation of it.  I’m inviting her for a seat at the table that was my day.  I rarely sit down at my table without pulling up a chair for her to sit right beside me. We’ve been sitting at each other’s table for 7 years now.  Our tables have grown longer, look different, and have transformed throughout the years, as life and distance continues to yield us in opposite directions geographically.  We found each other at our table for the first time in the form of a frat party.  I was lost at said party, (that’s your cue to pretend to be surprised), and our table scenery quickly shifted from beer-soaked ping pong tables, to a popcorn covered carpet of a college house while pillow talk and laughter carried it’s sweet scent through the halls.  Having a sleepover the first night we ever met, we found an empty seat at each other’s table that night. Never to be left again.  With us graduating years later, being pushed into the world of adulthood,  moving states, and her traveling what seemed like every time I blinked my eyes. Us showing up to the table often looked, and still looks like love letters in the mail and the comfort of pulling this sweatshirt over my head taking the place of a temporary Kati hug until I get a real Kati hug.

My sister Kati  is the most extraordinary heart I know. I learn something from her everyday, even when she’s half way around the world.  Showing up is her logo, love is her aesthetic and sistering is her tagline. She knows it, she spreads it and she’s the best at it.    She talks a million miles a minute (just like me), her smile takes up her whole face and her laugh is one of my favorite sounds to this date.  In a season where my version of love looked an awful lot like trying to serve as a “fixer” or a “people pleaser”, Kati showed me how to be something even better….a person who shows up.  Sistering 101!  The problem I ran into was when I would show up, I didn’t know what to do without the fixing or throwing out a Hallmark card inspirational quote. Ugh.  My worst nightmare, and yet my greatest and favorite life lesson learned. Offering presence and togetherness is way better than fixing:

1. You sit. 
2. You listen. 
3. You lean in. 
4. Then, you love.
5. Repeat forever.

When I did this, and received it graciously, I realized that sistering is both everywhere and an everyday choice.  It’s not in the big grandiose gestures, or defined by your bloodline. Sistering looks a lot like paying close attention to the little details.  Like how she knows the names of my students and prays for them, and me effortlessly being able to distinguish which photo she was behind the lens of when photos are posted on social media.   It looks like post-it-noting their front door or car with character compliments and love notes after their worst day.    It looks like inviting yourself over for a sleep over with a bottle of wine until your floor ugly cry has shifted naturally to serendipitous laughter crying.   It looks like surprise visits, presence and hand holding during seasons of crisis. Waiting for the sifting together.   It looks like knowing her address from memory to send “just because” mail, or to “ding-dong-ditch” her door for her to discover her favorite Pumpkin bread recipe and flowers on her porch. It looks like making a second home on her floor or her twin sized bed.  Because nights are hard, and sometimes the best way remedy to make it through is with your sister beside you.  It looks like making birthdays a national holiday. It’s differentiating cries.  Knowing which “no, you don’t have to come” means she’s going to be okay until morning, and which one means “you better already be on your way to her house”.  It looks like book swapping, song sharing and “I sent you this gift because it’s Tuesday”reflexes. It looks like paying for breakfast, coffee, dinner, drinks, lunch, dessert and not batting an eye at being payed back because love doesn’t keep score.  Knowing y’all, it’ll probably even out eventually in the end anyways. Who cares when. Kati taught me that sistering is just relentlessly showing up for your people.  Love is something you do, not just think about doing.  Sistering is not waiting for the opportunity to be a sister.   It’s taking what it means to sister and calling it an opportunity.

Kati and I are both identical twins and worlds different from one another, all in the same big, beautiful breath.  She looks fear not just dead in the face but directly in the eyes.  Fear is NO MATCH for Kati. It surrenders its’ white flag in defeat when she has an idea, vision or a dream.  She dives into fear with a sly smirk, a shrug, chuckle and lives her best life. Then, walks away with more stories lived in her pocket and with the upmost humility and grace while boldly yet seamlessly embracing her next adventure.  Next to her laugh, Kati talking about her new big idea, or plan for tackling her next dream is my other favorite sound.  Music to my soul.   Kati is the bravest person I’ve ever known, she feels the fear, all of it, and does it anyways.  If bravery was contagious, any ounce that I have I caught from her. I was not like this before I met Kati.  I am not fully like this now, but I try to practice courage a little more each day.  I learned to step into fearlessness by watching my sister.  Kati popped my safety bubble and said “you coming or what?!” The greatest choice was taking her hand  and letting her keep my bubble popped everyday since then.  The world is her teacher, and she is mine.  Sisters are my best teachers.

Bravery is vital to sistering I’ve learned.  Not just for the memory keeping and stacking up experiences to pull out when you’re old and gray, drinking in nostalgia and reminiscing over a glass of wine.  Because when you’re sistering, you have the gift of being a life witness. To fully see someone as they are.  To know their skeletons in the closet, their shame, and be fully present when their world drops from the atmosphere, all the lights blow out and neither one of you knows when the porch lights will go back on to call your lost souls back home.  It takes more than 10 seconds of insane courage to plant your feet on the ground and say “this doesn’t scare me. We can do this…together. Let’s keep moving. Walking is fine. Crawling is fine. Just as long as we’re moving together. ” Sisterining is staying. Becoming familiy is in the following.   Sistering is seeing the dark clouds rolling in and running full speed to clasp her hand, interlock fingers, before the sky grows dark and the storm rages on.  It’s opening her eyes when the clouds clear, the puddles dry up and the debris is gone and she looks down to see you still holding her hand.  Only this time it was because now you’re are celebrating her, with her.  You made it through together.  That’s what bravery looks like.  That is sistering, and it is the greatest honor, privilege and gift I could ever hold.  Much more  precious than I could ever just embrace with two arms.  Everything she has ever done, hurt through, loved fiercely, held her middle finger to, cried over, clapped in celebration for, overcame, risen to, poured her sweat and passion into, prayed through, broke through and  hugged tightly has and is always important to me.  In sistering it always will matter. 

We need our people always, but especially when life forges the hardest things in our hands and shoves them down into the depths of our hearts. Sure, I can do hard things,  but I can only do the hardest things alongside and hand in hand with my sisters. Through togetherness.  Through unconditional love.  Thorough our combined strength.  The people who choose to keep showing up when life gives great pain and see me raw are my sisters who choose to love every facet of my being.  This love shows no limits, and no conditions.  It exists despite distance, despite circumstances, season, longevity, and despite the weight of hurt.  That is the kind of love I want to walk side by side with no matter where I’m at in the world.  That is the kind of love I want and continue to strive to give no matter what place life takes me.  My sisters walk with me wherever I go, and I with them. In a world full of heaviness, that is the most beautiful comfort and gift I could ask for and simultaneously give.  

I got my sister and I was gifted the opportunity to step into sistering.  Santa Claus might have not been the one to drop this present off, and it may have been a little delayed, but this gift is one I reopen and wrap intentionally every single day. I am left better every day because of it.  Each time I hang up the phone, roll my eyes at tough love that I KNOW is true, turn away from them and towards the airport with a tear in my eye ( I ALWAYS CRY), laugh embarrassingly out loud at a text message, I learn a little more about sistering because I’ve been sistered (and continue to be) sistered by the world’s best, in all the best ways.  

To my sisters, the reason I sister, the keeper of my secrets, your sisterhood  is an answered prayer. We’ve not known each other our whole lives, but we’ve walked a whole lot of life together. We’ve wiped many a tears, prayed many prayers and celebrated life TOGETHER. What a joy, privilege and honor it is to witness the admirable person you continue to become and show up for you every day. Whether it’s on a couch sharing a glass of wine, at the beach, our hometowns, in our mailboxes delivering love from around the world, or on a FaceTime call time zones away. I pick to sister YOU any day, all the days and forever the days ahead. I won the lottery sistering you.

I am building a house where the floor is made of strength, where the walls are crafted in love and where the roof is built from bravery.  Much like sistering.  I am building myself and in the journey of self-discovery, I look around to see my sisters laying down the tile of the floor,  sanding the walls and up on the ladder inspecting the roof is strong enough to withstand the storm.  I am in their home and they are in mine.  The gift is that keeps giving and I get to experience it everyday.   If I could pick a favorite sport it would be sistering.  If I could pick a favorite team, it would be each other. 

Sister on, sister.  

TRIGGER WARNING: The following discusses Eating Disorders and mentioning of some behaviors.

During my senior year of college, I wrote a “break-up” letter to my eating disorder in honor of National Eating Disorder Awareness week.  It was a very strong “It’s not me, it’s you” declaration of me initiating taking my life back.  In that season, I was two years out of treatment, and beginning to experience the fruits that were sown through all the heart work that is in congruency with recovery.  In that writing piece, I researched and crafted this statement: 

“ Somewhere in the world right now, you have eight million people held hostage in the grasp of your hands. Eight million people whose time is being wasted believing lies about them that isn’t true. Eight million people whose passions aren’t being pursued. Eight million people whose support system and friendships are crumbling before them. Eight million people who cry themselves to sleep. Eight million people who skip meals. Eight million people who lost their joy. Eight million people who don’t remember what it’s like to live without a fiery voice barking orders in your ear. Eight million people who have a false representation of what love is. That is eight million people too many”.

This year though, I couldn’t just repost that blog in honor of this week and call it a day. You see, that post is due for an update because the above statement I wrote is no longer accurate.  In fact, a statistic provided by the National Eating Disorder Association, as of January 2021 corrects my 8 million referenced and increased to 10 million.  One of those 10 million people included within that statistic was a girl I attended school with at one time in my life.  Only, this girl isn’t celebrating her healing this week like I am.   Instead, she lost her life to the disease that has the highest mortality rate among any other mental illness in women 18-24 (Source: Eating Disorders Coalition, Facts About Eating Disorders: What the Research Shows).  I am celebrating healing this week, she is not.  I simultaneously radically accept this and find my heart completely broken and hurting over it.  

It was a rare, rainy Sunday in San Diego and I was partaking in what every other young adult does…  browsing social media with a glass of wine to avoid the “Sunday scaries” of course!  I came across a name that took my breath away. One I once knew in what seemed like another life.  Right below the fifty thousandth engagement post I eye-rolled at, I was met with “name of girl obituary”…. My heart dropped.  I subconsciously held my breath and tension housed itself in my chest as I hesitantly clicked the link to reveal what I wondered all these years… “did she make it?”  I didn’t like the answer to my question: No.  She lost her battle.  The one we were fighting at the exact same time and no one knew about…but we did.  We knew it about one another, but we were the “secret keepers”.  The AP students and valedictorians of secret-keeping. In my experience, usually, people with big secrets are gifted in detecting the big secrets of others.  This turned out to be a secret I wish I never kept.  

Twice a week, I lead a small group with my 5th-grade gals and we talk about all things growing up.  One topic we’ve touched on is promises and secrets we keep, and promises and secrets we should NEVER keep.  Promises/ secrets you should always break are classified under if someone is being hurt, is hurting themselves, or is unsafe. As a teacher, my biggest hope is that my kids turn out FAR better than I am.  Please, surpass me in all areas, that’s what I want and dream for you.  This is a lesson I hope they carry with them in the depths of their being far longer than their time in my class is sentenced to be.  I would rather them experience having a “mad” friend than a dead friend. I hope they never know what it’s like the receive news that doesn’t just knock on your door but breaks it down only leaving you with the remorse of keeping a secret they never wish they did.  Because that’s what I was handed on that rainy Sunday.  The sky cried with me. 

This year, in honor of this week and the girl I once knew who isn’t celebrating with me, I wrote a letter to my treatment team. 

While I did an incredible amount of heart work,  I would be nowhere without the team of professionals I had.  The full circle life moment about this is I have to drive past the center I was in every day on my way to work.  A job I most likely wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for this team. As imaginable, there are several deep layers and elements to this letter I’ve crafted, but a section includes lessons I’ve learned and accomplishments I’ve made.  My sincerest and only reservation or agenda in sharing this intimacy in this blog resides in hope that a struggling ED sister or brother sees the tangible life and love that has the potential to lie ahead of them like it did for me.  You see, when I was struggling with ED, hopes for the future were clouded.  ED just unplugs all of the electricity for hope and I was trying to navigate myself to find candles, flashlights and turn the light back on in pitch-black darkness. Here’s what life can looked like when finally turned the light on:

Lessons I’ve learned: 

• Reconnecting with life, is way better than rushing through it.
• Saying “no” is loving yourself.
• Treatment is where the worlds’ secrets to “success” were exposed.  I never listen to the world anymore. 
• Let me eat cake!  Education and value in learning there no technical label “good” food or “bad” food…yes really! Go ask my kick ass Dietician!
• I want my heart to weigh as much as possible.  
• Drive life, don’t just survive it. 
• Fat is not a feeling.
• Feelings are not facts.
• Anger is not a “bad” feeling.  Also, whoever told you to sweep anger under the rug to never see the light of day…was WRONG. 
• There is a whole, complete separate person from your Eating Disorder. Get to know THAT person. 

Accomplishments I achieved, and experiences I lived WITHOUT my Eating Disorder and post-treatment: 

• First-person in my family to graduate college!  

• Moved to a city I never visited 5 days after graduating.
• Built a life I loved in that city (Shoutout to you Nashville, I miss you).

• Earned a teaching credential and license.
• Taught Kindergarten in an underprivileged school.

• Started a blog and writing more.
• Had my story put in a college ministry book (HEY DELIGHT). 

• Surprised my best friends MULTIPLE times.
• Gained THE BEST friends.  Seriously, all the best friends in the world…I get to call them MINE! 
• Was able to BE THERE for friends. Support them. Cheer them on. Love them. 

• Drove cross country with my dad.
• Saw snow fall for the first time

• Became a dance teacher.
• Became and fell in love with being a 5th grade teacher. 

• Rescued a pup. 

On this week every year, I am often met with “why are you so open about your Eating Disorder?” “Isn’t that personal?”  The answer is YES! This is not my favorite topic to pour out into the world. First, I cannot sit here and fail to acknowledge that people shedding their armor in exchange for vulnerability to share and let me into their own story is one of the strongest tools that empowered me to want to recover. Second of all, as I learned from this entire experience I just wrote about, look where keeping secrets got me.  Look where it got the girl I once went to school with. This is not a secret worth keeping. Having your hair fall out due to a lack of nutrients in attempting to exchange it for control, is not a secret worth keeping.  Having difficult moments breathing because your internal organs are working overtime, all the time to keep you alive is not a secret worth keeping. Crying yourself to sleep feeling like being “skinny” is the only aspect of life my mastery is found in, is not a secret worth keeping.  Everyone’s story is so unique, intimate, personal, and woven into the depths of their lives, and I honor that to the highest degree. This is a chapter of my story I personally don’t find value in keeping a secret.  Eating Disorders have secrets too. In fact, ED keeps the best secret of all from you: LIFE.  

“By the way your grades look right now,  college isn’t looking like it might not be a very realistic goal right away.”-direct quote stated to 8th grade me by a middle school counselor.  It is 12 years later and remember everything about that day.  The disappointment looming inside me when I was leaving the room that day thinking “but, I really am trying, no one believes me” is a feeling I will never forget as long as I live. One I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.  I remember what I was wearing, what my hair was like, what classroom I was in, what time of day it was… everything.  How does a professional just hand a 13 year old a sentence for her future and get up and walk away back to her office?  I guess that was that,  no college for me.  “It’s just not fair, I didn’t even get a chance” I thought.  Why does my brain work like this?  I love learning why doesn’t my brain love it too?  Why can’t I understand?  Teachers told me there was no such thing as a stupid question.  Then, why whenever I built up the courage to raise my hand in class and answer a question did everyone laugh at me?  “I’m the exception”I thought.  “There is no such thing as a stupid question except when I ask.”  I vowed to stay silent in class from that day onward.  I might a well be mute, no one one would hear me utter a single word.  I rarely spoke in class for two or three years after that.  I barley asked for help when I really needed it and definitely not whole group.  It was isolating to hear my classmates talk about what they wanted to be when they “grew up” and what major they wanted to pursue college.  It was like every one was talking about the biggest party of the century that I would never be invited to.  I secretly wanted to be a teacher.  More than anything. How could a girl who wasn’t even getting an invitation to college become a teacher…what a pipe dream.

Here I am 12 years not only a college graduate but a 5th grade teacher.  How in the world did that timid, confidentless 13 year old get from there to here? 

Teachers.  Teachers. Teachers. Teachers. Teachers is the answer.  Teachers is my only answer.  There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m in classroom, that I don’t think about Ms. Karp, Ms. Amberg and Mr. Barnett.  Without them- I would certainly not be writing this in my almost-but-not-quite-yet-finished classroom on my lunch break. It’s not just the whole classroom teachers though.  It’s the one-on-one teachers too.  The one’s who know your struggles like the back of their hand.  The one’s who see you fail way more times than you ever succeed.  Those ones are special.  They see your tears, wipe them away and help you pick yourself back up to “just one more time.” They celebrate with you when you bring that test back they helped you study for.  They have a special place in your heart.  I have a spot in my heart reserved for my own one-on-one teacher.  One that showed up for me every Monday and Wednesday for two years straight.  Who saw me cry more times than I can count and got me through high school.  Who listened to me talk about dance and my dreams.  Who gave me an unlimited supply of grace and patience when I had none left for myself.  Michelle Phillips holds that special place in my heart-she has a home there.  

It’s been ten years since my last day at Michelle’s desk.  10 years since I said goodbye and what I thought would be my last “thank you”.  How do you properly thank someone who gave you everything when you thought you had nothing?  There are no words for gratitude like that.  If we’re lucky in this life, we have the opportunity to boomerang back around to humans who helped us get to where we are today.  To show them “YOU helped me get here. If life didn’t pass me to you, who knows where I’d be or what I would be doing.”  That once in a lifetime boomerang was gifted to me.

I started a new job August 3rd 2020.  I packed up the life I built and loved in Nashville, TN and moved back to my hometown San Diego, CA.  To say I love this job and the people there is the biggest understatement and disservice to my feelings EVER.  However, we’re not at this part of the story yet.  On my way to my first day I shot up a prayer “Heavenly Father, I need a green light. A green light that I made the right decision coming back here.  That this risk  I took has placed me right where I need to be.  I need my green light”.  I show up to work greeted by the friendliest faces, the warmest smiles and the most genuine hearts.  I get through half of my first day and am approached by a woman with the gentlest voice and sweetest soul:  “You’re Samantha Barnes”. I respond with my biggest smile smile and a resounding “Yes! It’s so nice to meet you!”  I’m met with the ultimate green light: “I don’t know if you remember me but I’m Michelle, I used to tutor you”.  My jaw about dropped a mile low that day.  My heart skipped a beat. I could have burst into tears on the spot.  One of the very people who helped me get to where I was in that very moment was now someone I GET to call my co worker?  My teammate? My friend?  My sister in Christ? My chosen family? Green light. Go.

My wondering seized and peace settled into its rightful spot.  I am exactly where I’m suppose to be, a place, with the right people in the right job.  As if this wasn’t enough,  not only do Michelle and I work at the same school, we’re on the same elementary team.  If THAT wasn’t enough, we are classroom neighbors.  Someone who loved me so well in a time I so desperately needed it, gets to see the fruit of what her love, investment and time did.  It changes a life.  The greatest words I’ve been able to say to someone since moving back here were to Michelle “I wouldn’t be here, in this job without you.  Thank you.”  

Teachers are superheroes, I work with mine every single day.  

Thank you Michelle, this one is for you ❤

As a young girl, I spent many of my Summers in Chicago. I distinctly relish in one or two memories of each Summer…thunderstorms. My San Diego raised self loved a big Mid-west, rumbling, striking thunder and lightning storm that lit up the sky. I reach back in my mind and replay my cousins and I outside swimming, playing kick the can or baseball when we watched the sky go from one hue of bright and blue to dark and black. I remember our faces lighting up as we all scurried to clean up our outdoor activity and race inside to seek refuge. I can still hear the sound of my sparkly sketchers as they hit the pavement racing my cousins inside with excitement building in my little body with each stride. We would always come together as a team to plan what we we’re going to do to keep each other safe. We would run down to the basement and investigate any potential cracks or opening where the storm could possibly get us and barricade them off. We grabbed flashlights, blankets and of course all the food. Chips, dip, popcorn, candy, soda pop, anything we could get our sticky little fingers on. We were the big super heroes saving the day. We were simply saving each other from being the damsels in distress in the middle of a storm. We would create shelter also known as a blanket fort, bundle up close together, turn on our flashlights and favorite movies. One hour after another, sitting there being with each other giggling, sugaring up, and talking as the soundtrack of the big storm played in the background. Thinking of how lucky we were to be safe together.

Being from Southern California, I didn’t know much about thunderstorms. All I knew was that inside was SAFE and outside was UNSAFE. Outside was dangerous. Outside was where even the strongest tree branches fell. Where the wind pushed down everything that was deemed stable and the darkness was a big scary unknown that you don’t dare make eye contact with. The louder the storm, the closer it was and the deeper you bury yourself in your shelter and clench your eyes shut. When the power went out, or when the lighting strikes a little too close for comfort is when you lean in closer and come together to keep each other protected. That’s all my nine and ten year old self knew. Maybe, it wasn’t actually the storms themselves that I was captivated by. Maybe, it wasn’t the awe I felt watching the sky be painted from blue to black in just one stroke. Maybe, I was entranced by storms because I fell in love with the people I built shelter with. Just maybe, as a young girl thunderstorms were my catapult where I would learn how to tie people close when darkness came. That when thunder raged louder and scarier, that was my cue to bring the light in closer. To hug the love for people tighter. I discovered that when armoring up for a big storm, we can prepare by hoarding all the flashlights, the junk food the blankets we have, but, if you forget your people, you have nothing. No amount of junk food is going to validate your feelings stirring in fear and uncertainty when lightning strikes. Not even the biggest or softest blanket in the world is going serve you reassurance, hold your hand and whisper “you’re safe, I’m right here.” The brightest flashlight cannot compare to the light and warmth that togetherness radiates. Only people can do that. Thunder storms is where I learned seeking people is the best refuge amidst the biggest storm.

That ten year old girl who once ran towards physical shelter when raindrops pounded against her face is now 24 and sprints past the houses and towards the people. Instead of using my hands to gather flashlights, blankets and food, these days, I use my hands to reach for other hands. Mid reach for these hands, I find I only need to reach about half way before they grasp mine right back. Standing together, hands clutched in the middle of the storm doesn’t mean one person has their shit together and the other one is falling apart. Sometimes, it may look like that, but, not always. Actually, more times than not both of you are broken but need one another for reassurance to know you’re not alone. Other times, the hands you’re holding are carrying the same pain you are, the same experience and you’re walking together to discover the next right thing. Before you know it, you’re not just clutching one or two hands. You look up from the sadness, you uncover your ears you unclench your eyes. If for only but a moment and see you have the most grandiose shelter you could have ever imagined; a whole army of love warriors around you. What is special and unique about having a shelter of love warriors is that you experience how everyone holds your hand differently. Sometimes, people see the storm approaching before you do and start running for you. Others, come after it’s been raining hard and the wind is blowing. They grab your hand when the clouds turn dark. Sometimes people are holding your hand and they don’t even know it. That’s my favorite! The storm is still raging on all around you, but, you’ve stopped running and hiding. There’s no need to run anymore when your shelter is surrounding you.

The end of 2018 and 2019 thus far has been biggest storm I saw coming but never wanted to unleash. I kept running and running, rain kept hitting my face harder and harder as I continued to pass shelters. The intensity of the storm increased so gravely that I collapsed. My feet couldn’t carry me any longer. I fell to my knees and reached for hands instead and you know what? Shelter showed up. Isn’t it amazing that we get to reach for a shelter who will meet us where we’re at?

I unclenched my eyes and saw my sister warriors, my sweet dancers, their gracious families, my favorite dance choreographer, a church who loved me, my treasured new life witnesses and professionals whom I don’t know where I’d be without. My shelter is built on a foundation of love letters. Sweat, hope and inspiration from Wednesday night dance classes. Hugs and “I did it” faces from my favorite dancing souls and invitations from their families to holidays. Safe hands of professionals and doctors who held me tight in the place I was in and loved me through it (and continue to do so). It’s a pretty damn strong shelter if you ask me.

My sisters were and are my flashlights. My best friends Kati, Maggie, Shanna, Abbey and so many others caught the cue to bring the light in closer when it got dark. Holding my hand and stepping with me when I couldn’t even see where the next step was. Sending love in the mail after particularly trying weeks. Reminding me what my next right thing was when the wind tried to blow me away. Shinning their light in the direction of strength and love when the power went out. Replaced the batteries when they had to shine the light for a prolonged period of time. Only to reassure me they were still there through FaceTimes, phone calls and everyday texts. I didn’t know hugs could be felt or light could be seen from a thousand miles away but, that’s how strong my chosen sisters are.

My every week Wednesday dance classes were and still is my soft blanket. A sanctuary that wraps me up tight in inspiration and truth telling. A familiar comfort of mine reminding me “its okay, you’re safe here.” Navigating a storm while trying to be where your feet are is incredibly frustrating and tiresome. It’s almost impossible to do without guidance. Almost. But, I found the guidance. Or I should say the guidance showed up, because she was the one facilitating the class. This is one of those strong pieces of shelter that is particularly special. One I couldn’t have predicted or foreseen coming, didn’t even know I needed, but, just fell into my lap. When I lost sight of the floor, or my feet got tangled or my body said “quit”, Joy said “sometimes we get wrapped up in just the moves, but, just listen and tell your own story.” Before, I could tell my own story Joy showed me how to listen. She showed me listening is not waiting for your turn to dance or story tell. Listening is using your ears to hear the story behind the lyrics. The musicality and accents that might otherwise be lost. Your eyes to see how other people tell their story and grab on to their movement almost to dance in response and say “yeah, me too.” In order to listen I needed to stop moving. Just, like how I had to stop running to seek refuge.
When I just stopped moving and reminded myself to listen first, I found the floor. The floor of my shelter that would keep me safe. The only way I was able to do that was being able to decide that the shelter was safe. Dance doesn’t make the space safe, only people can do that. Joy makes the space safe, she made it safe to dance my story week after week. She deemed my storm safe and “all cleared” to experience in a way that was comforting. She’s a human who tossed me the blanket reminding me that it’s important to be seen and it’s important to be known. My feelings from the storm-the fear, the loneliness, the uncertainty, the anger came out on the dance floor every Wednesday because the foundation of my shelter was safe. Without even realizing it, Joy watched me dance out my storm every week and was a keeper of the story that brought me to it. She looked and listened to the storm raging on and used it as a soundtrack that authentically matched her choreography. Without Joy, I don’t know how long it would’ve taken me to unclench my eyes and look up at my shelter and see I have a big ole blanket around me to keep me warm. I didn’t know when the storm would end or where the lights would come back on but I had Wednesdays with Joy.

The food my cousins and I used to collect as a nine year olds I no longer had to search for. My shelter was always in full supply thanks to my favorite dancing gals. These hearts kept me fueled to ground my feet and stand in the storm. Their little, but, mighty hands grasped mine and their power reminded me of my own. Dancing the stories of their hearts and storms with such raw conviction, nourished my soul and cleared my sight to see I’m not the only one standing in the middle of a storm. Their innocence and honesty reminds me to reach my hands outside of my own shelter and be a shelter. With these dancers, I was supplied with the whole food pyramid. Sweet and energized on life that laughter sent us all on a sugar high. Hugs, high fives, notes and thank yous that left me craving more and more, just like the fattier foods do for me. Team work and execution that served as the nuts and bolts our time together. The technique and partnership that kept us strong, the meat of it all. Style, expression that kept us always captivated by one another. The little something extra or the side dish we all got to indulge in with one another after training so hard. There’s something different about this supply of “food” then the food my cousins and I reached for in a storm. That food kept my stomach full, this nourishment keeps my heart full.

In physical thunderstorms, we need to search for, or build shelter. We need to seek out the resources; Go to the store, buy the flashlights, purchase the food and get that blanket off the top shelf. In life’s thunderstorms we are in abundant supply to both give shelter and receive shelter. This time around, I received shelter. Everything I needed couldn’t be found at the store, or in the basement. It could only be found in people. I was fully stocked from the love of people. The flashlights, the blankets and the food I didn’t need to search far for. It was in the hearts of people where I found refuge. It was building shelter together that made this storm so bearable, almost sweet.
To this day I’m still in love with thunderstorms. The darker the clouds, the louder the thunder, the brighter then lightning, the better. It’s God’s reminder to me that He graced me with the best and sturdiest shelter I could imagine…

People.

New Years Eve is one of my favorite holidays.  I would be so bold to even say it is one of my favorite days of the entire year.   I know, I know, not the first holiday most people claim as their “favorite day of the year” but hear me out.

I don’t like New Years Eve for the parties.  I don’t like it for the “midnight kisses” and clinking glasses.  I don’t like it for the ball dropping at midnight, or the cliche,“ugh” and eye rolling worthy slogan “new year, new me”.  I’m not changing at the stroke of mind night, I am not Cinderella.  I am still Samantha Athena Barnes at 11:59 PM and 12:00 AM.  Thank God for that.

I love New Years Eve for my 3 R’s:

• Reflecting
• Revisiting
• Rejoicing

My soul is fueled when reflecting on the year and all it had to offer me.  When it handed me joy, I rewind and replay those memories over again.  Each time I revisit those adventures with my humans, my outsides match my insides.  I am glowing, warm, energized, barley able to contain my myself and authentically smiling ear to ear.

I am empowered by reflecting back on the hardships and battles life threw at me.  To say “HEY! LOOK AT ME I DID THE DAMN THING!  I SHOWED UP, DID THE NEXT RIGHT THING AND STAYED ON MY MAT!”  Gold star, gold star, gold star.

I rejoice in all the growing pains I overcame, tears that once soaked my face now serve purpose, struggles and healing God introduced to me this year.

Phew.  Y’ALL I MADE IT! And…another freaking gold star.

On December 31st, 2016 I played back my year like a movie.  The highlight reel  featured more scenes of disappointment, defeat than triumphs, and heartfelt memories.  I remember crying more than smiling, my heart feeling anxious more than excited and feeling more uncertainty than ever before.  How could it be? How could I not remember more collections of love and joy?  I know they happened but the moments of darkness over powered them.  It consumed my light.  Where was my light?  Where were my 3 R’s?  I am a being that gravitates more towards looking through an optimistic lens2, but for the life of me,  I couldn’t remember where my collective joy was that year.

So, on January 1st, 2017 I started my photo of the day challenge.  It was my only new year goal.  I don’t like calling goals for the year “new years resolutions”.  I am not planning on resolving anything, that’s too much unattainable pressure for one human.  My only goal for every year is to grow in every facet I need to.  If I resolve something, all I’m doing is limiting my own capacity to never stop growing.  Wheres the fun in that!?

My photo of the day was a challenge for me to take a picture every day for year of the best thing that happened to me that day.  I was proving to myself that I can find gratitude in every single day.  That’s right. Every.Single.Day.  That every day there was a glimmer of kindness, hope, love that flashed across my life.  Some days they were long glimmers of beaming love and others the tiniest speck of light.  No matter how teeny tiny or massive my light was, it was deeply rooted, and saturated in love.  Love for people, from people, love from nature, kindness from the world, grace, and experiences.

There were probably more days than not this year where this deeply feeling 23 year old warrior was lost in this big, bright, messy, beautiful world.  There were other days where this deeply feeling 23 year old warrior was THRIVING.  Dancing on cloud nine, smiling until my cheeks hurt, laughed until I couldn’t breathe, energized off of natural love within the world.

2017 threw me an extreme hand of cards.  Periods of only extreme highs and extreme lows.  My heart experienced selfless, undeniable, unconditional love, deepened friendship, baptisms, milestones, a new fur faced piece of my world, a new home to live in, 20 little hearts to serve, new passions, a new church to worship, new people to hug, more hands to hold and old hands to hold tighter.

2017 also threw at me grave darkness that seeped into my heart and mind.  Darkness I didn’t even know existed.  Pain that runs deep in my being, enough tears to fill a sea, betrayal that took (is taking) a huge toll on my soul, anger that I didn’t (don’t know) what to do with, a significant loss that my heart is still recovering from, important friendships that are lost and now out of my hands reach and a mental health crisis.  It gave me lies from people I trusted and judgment-assumptions from humans who don’t know the first thing about me and never bothered to ask about my story.

2017 handed me two extremes.  Sometimes God gave me people in these moments, sometimes He didn’t, and sometimes He took them away so the only thing I could stand on was my own two feet and my faith.

Despite this, my photo of the day project serves evidence that 2017 gave me…

God painted beach sunsets on Life guard tower 61 at Newport beach.  It gave me glasses of wine and beer to share with friends exchanging laughter, secrets, and storytelling.  2017 launched my passion into education, life gave me a pup whom I rescued and she saved me-we belong to each other.  2017 gave me a College degree.  Not just me, but my family (Shout out to those fellow first generation college students!!).  Hell yeah, we did it!  2017 gave me trips where I saw snow fall for the first time, I pranced around unfamiliar cities consumed by people who shape me.  2017 gave me 13 new books to read.  Books filled with rich wisdom, raw authenticity and honest, humbling insight.  2017 reminded me I have people who would jump on planes and fly across the country just to simply be.  2017 gave me the greatest gift I have yet to discover-sistering.  The opportunity to sister and be sistered by those whom I see as they are, they see me and we love each other anyways.  I am known, they are known and are the family I choose every day, all over again, every time. This year showed me the massive bond and power the love of a family holds.  To conquer together what people say is not possible.  2017 gave (and continues to give) the art of forgiving.  2017 introduced the skill to stand up bruised, dirty, messy, lost, beaten, hopeful and feel every emotion knowing because of faith I can do hard things-we can do hard things together.  I believe this with every fiber of being so deeply I permentantly engraved it on my foot to always prove I walk with people and they walk with me.  I walk with God and He walks with me.

Because while all the loss, pain, betrayal, change, anxiety , failure, devastation and confusion was going on…

so was this;

Step 1: Reflect

Step 2: Revisit

Step 3: Rejoice

Happy 2017.

You know where I’ve seen the most belonging since moving Nashville? In a bar. Sober.

Yes, in a bar downtown, on Broadway where there is a trillion bachelorette parties happening all at once, every Saturday night and most likely I know a solid three people out of three thousand. A place and scenario that usually screams out lack of belonging and ABORT MISSION, PUT DOWN THE BEER AND GO BACK TO YOUR SAFE PLACE. However, for me I found to be the total opposite.
I look around in the sea of people and I see sideways dancing,more drinks spilling on the floor than in mouths, making out against walls and yelling the lyrics to Wagon Wheel. From a birds eye view, it truly just looks like your average bar scene. But if I hone in a little closer I see people pounding down the drinks faster than they can say “I’ll have another”. I see tears. Streams and streams of tears. I hear “fighting words”. I see fighting period. I see people trying to put on their “I’m having the best night of my whole life omg wow” face when in reality they look miserable and that they might find themselves on the bathroom floor at any moment. I see people being ditched by their friends, I see people find their friends after three hours. I see misplaced punches being thrown, and women looking in the mirror longer than they’re actually in the bar. I look and I look and look some more it becomes so apparent to me that being in a bar is the most vulnerable environment I’ve been in since moving here.

Who would have thought that Honky Tonk Central and Tootsies is where I see that I’m not the only one who is broken. I’m not the only one who wants to be heard, I’m not the only one who wishes someone would just lie down in the darkness for a while and hold my hand. I’m not the only one. There are three thousand “me toos” in the room who are all just crying out for belonging using different filters. Being in this bar scene is a lot like my reality. Just a bunch of people putting on fronts to act like we all have our lives together or to make x,y, and z happy. The difference at the bar is people struggle a lot more to keep their fronts together.  If the glue that holds us all together comes crashing down, people are more likely to sit with the pain for a bit instead of scrambling to put the pieces back together before anyone sees.  People are more willing to be seen for the place and state they’re in.

A new favorite thing of mine when going out downtown is not to get drunk. I know, the exact opposite response most Uber drivers and bar tenders usually get. It’s having real conversations with people who are just trying to find belonging like me. Someone is crying? All I have to do is walk up to them and ask them if they’re okay and ask what they need. You know what happens? They cut the bullshit and they tell the truth. They say “no I’m not okay, my friends left me and I’m upset.” They say “no I’m not okay, I had a really shitty week at work and l’m dreading the week so I’m going to forget about it for the night.” They say “no. I just moved here, I know no one and I’m lonely.” They say “My girlfriend of 3 years just broke up with me and I don’t know what to do.” Honesty happens in a bar. The yearning for belonging is just disguised by Blue Moons, shots of Fireball, and long Women’s bathroom lines. Ask a person if they’re okay and they’re in shock. They’re in shock that someone wants them to be heard as much as they want to be heard. From my own observation people want to be truth tellers. I don’t know about you, but I want to be a truth teller all the time, everyday. But out in the real world sometimes, when people don’t always care to ask the hard questions, being a truth teller is really, really scary. Especially when no one else is doing it. As Glennon Doyle Melton said it best, those moments when you put yourself out on the ledge of vulnerability and admit “actually I’m not fine” only to be shut down and realize “oh we’re not doing that here”. But in a bar when people have a hard time keeping their glue together, and just let it be when it falls apart, it’s easier to be a truth teller when you SEE you’re not alone. I guess we are doing that here in a bar. When we do that honest thing, stories and longing for belonging pour out faster than the alcohol.

In my experience, I have found the three most powerful sentences in a bar are not “can I buy you a drink?”, “Let’s get out of here” or “Rock me mama like a wagon wheel” (only in Nashville). They are “That’s so hard, I know what it’s like”, “Me too” and “What do you need right now?”

I found for me, it’s not the most powerful words just in a bar, it’s the most powerful words in this particular season in my life. Those three and a genuine “I love you”. I’m thinking maybe, just maybe I’m not the only one.

To the many new warriors I’ve met in the bar, had a life talk with, shared a beer with and a genuine hug….

Me too. This one’s for you. For me. For finding a moment of belonging in the midst of utter chaos.