New life goal: meet Sia.

My husband and I were talking about her recently after watching some interviews and he said "She is a modern day Mozart." I agree. Her ability to create music out of thin air, her talent for writing lyrics and her whole creative process and how effortless she makes it seem is incredible.

I have been immersing myself in her music lately.

I believe many of us live several different lives in the course of our years, almost like we've been several different people. I know I have. And just like smells and images have the powerful ability to evoke vivid memories, Sia's music is like time travel for me. It recalls those lifetimes. I can put in my headphones, turn up the music, close my eyes and zoom in on those moments. Live presently in the past. Another life. It's exhilarating. And strange. One of the reasons I love music so much is it's ability to stretch and elongate the feelings we are experiencing. It's the reason it can be so dangerous, so healing, so captivating and so consuming all at the same time.

90s music reminds me of hot summer days and a sun glare in my eye as I stick my head out the window of a moving car. Country music, Garth Brooks in particular reminds me of my dad. I can picture him moving about the house cleaning, a smile on his face. Sia reminds me of my struggles, the need to break out of my bounds, physically, emotionally, to push limits and explore who I am. It reminds me of Europe, dancing, feeling entirely free. Counting Crows take me back to rainy roads where I took many walks and had many cries, pouring my heart out, one with the universe and connected to everything. 

I don't know who I am in the recesses of my life that I'm away from music.

It brings me freedom. Hope. It allows me to bleed and scream and become through someone else. To relate and know I am not alone. It fills me, feeds me, moves me. A good song is like a whisper to my soul. It inhabits me. And I sing at the top of my lungs with my eyes closed.

"I don't care if I sing off key
I find myself in the melody
I sing for love, I sing for me
I shout it out like a bird set free" - Sia

Music sets me free.

Ten people/groups I'd love to meet (or have dinner with) before I die:
1. Imogen Heap

2. Kelsey Wells
3. Jay Shetty

4. Temper Trap
5. Metric

5. Pink

6. Terry Tempest Williams

7. Sim Kern

8. Sharon McMahon

9. Suileika Jaouad

10. 

Hello. It's been a little bit. Life, you know.

Today I've been reflecting on forgiveness. We'll get back to that.

I have always been a bit sassy and independent with an extreme hunger for justice. In every encounter. With every person. I remember in Junior High writing a letter with a friend to her dad detailing our side of an argument and really feeling at the end of it that there was no way he could say no. I was born to be a lawyer.

Since then a lot of tough things have happened. Things that have upended my world and dulled my sense of resolve. Shrunk my confidence. But the one thing that remains like an unquenchable, at times out-of-control fire is the innate need for justice to prevail. For people to right their wrongs, apologize, make amends, ask for forgiveness, forgive, do right by other people.

At the end of the day I'm only in charge of my own actions. I cannot make anyone do what I want the to do, even when what I want them to do might also be the right thing. Back to forgiveness. It's the one thing I can use my agency to do when someone hurts me. It's the thing I can do when someone goes out of their way to make my life more difficult. When someone is entirely self-unaware (you know, the opposite of self-aware) or ignorant or just too self-involved to notice how their actions might be harming me.

Life is hard. We are all imperfect. We all struggle. But we also ALL have the power to be kind to one another. To do good. To let things go. If we aren't able to move past the little things, what happens to our lives when the REALLY big and painful things hit? It takes so much energy and focus, but changing how we respond and even our "go-to" thoughts about a person or action can happen through consistent, repeated self-talk. You heard me right - talking to ourselves is not necessarily a bad thing. I know from personal experience that bitterness, anger, envy and anxiety are the poison I drink into my own body hoping it'll affect another person. What a waste of time. What a lousy expenditure of one moment of this beautiful gift I've been given. I can love and forgive those who hurt me. I have to in order to create my own happiness.

xoxo