Happy New Year!!

Haven't been writing as frequently as I would like. I don't know why I always feel so guilty when I write / reflect - like it's a secret I need to keep. Maybe it's because I'm worried that I'm showing too much of myself through words haha.

Anyway, it's been a nice year, a good year. A year of being able to luxuriate in all my impulses / urges to bake and craft and create, and it has really been fun. To think that I used to be so sad all the time. I am very happy.

I think a lot of it has to do with the silent retreat in May, where something in me healed. Some sad, scared, part of me was uprooted and my emptiness refilled, and our Lord telling me that I could always go back to the place of calm and silence and love any time I needed or wanted. And I've definitely learned to be softer and gentler with myself, in a way, to treasure who I am as a person. 

Sometimes I am struck by love for myself hahahaha like I look in the mirror and see a girl who deserves to be loved, and I can't begin to express what a change this has been - to be able to look at myself and not hate the way I look and think and move and breathe. I can admire myself now and that's like a really really big deal, because now the gaze that matters is my own, and not anyone else's.

I have always been fascinated with the idea of the gaze, of eyes, of how I've always felt dissected and picked apart when people look at me. But I am learning how to look with compassion. In Florence, I was laughing at something Deborah said and when I looked up, I looked up into the eyes of a gypsy lady and she smiled at me and said, "ayy carina" (sweetheart). I think about that a lot, how she didn't ask for money, although my smile immediately dimmed because all I could think of was that she wanted money from me, but something in her gaze, the good-natured cheerfulness of it all, it's stuck with me. She looked at me and called me a sweetheart like she was naming me.

Do I want to be a sweetheart? Most of the time, my heart feels brittle and bitter, like old orange peels drying from the rafters. But something in me feels like summer, a little plush, a little green, I let myself get fat over the past year, I fed myself instead of starving. I gave into the cakes and ice cream and the joy of the sea and being silly with friends and making a record of the works of my hands, and it's been beautiful. I kept the happiness in my heart. I spoke my mind. I was mean and rude and logical and sarcastic. In my dreams I lost my temper and yelled. Sometimes I cried, but they weren't the brokenhearted tears of previous years, they were good tears, mature tears, tears of acknowledgment and simplicity, the ripe fruit of my emotion. I let myself feel it all, and it was good.

This year, I would like to continue feeling and learning how to let my emotions run their course. There is a hardness in me whenever I think of my job. I know this situation cannot last, but as it is, please Lord, teach me how to let go, teach me how to leave with grace and love. I have been happy.