you don’t always see them, but you know they’re always there.”

If you know me, you know I love hosting parties: tea parties, cookie parties, pinterest parties, you name it! You would also know that I never did fit into one group of friends so I have many from all over! We don’t talk every day or even that often but when we get together, my heart is always SO filled by these solid friends of mine and the fun conversations amongst all of us doing all different things in life! It re-centers me and I got to thinking that true joy and love are similar in that there isn’t reason behind their feelings. You just feel them- and that to me is what Christmas should feel like.

Can I be honest with you? Sometimes the holidays seem a little off for me. I’ve had a few rough ones where instead of feeling joy and love I felt bitterness and exhaustion from a torn family. I could easily blame it on what I call pressure to perform. In my case it was trying to spread my time evenly amongst all my family and make sure I had all my siblings organized too. But you know what? I’m older now and its up to me to cultivate that joy and love that I desire to feel.

It’s still a work in progress and someone I know said something that got me thinking…he said “I just stopped putting expectations on the holidays.” At first I thought it was sort of a grinch thing to say, but now I get it. We work up all these ideas in our heads of what Christmas should look like or how people should make us feel. In the end we often end up robbing ourselves of genuine love and joy because we’re not only making ourselves miserable but we’re not fulfilling others either. Instead we should just BE- surround ourselves with people we love because we want to, not because we have to or because its tradition.

I don’t think there’s such a thing as a perfect Christmas because Christmas involves many people and everyone has their different ideas of a perfect Christmas. So I will choose to be responsible for cultivating my own joy and love and reciprocating that to the people around me. Not through gifts or traditions, through just being present in each moment.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all! I hope you find joy, love, peace, and health this holiday season!!!

Love,
Abby

Hi friends,

Today I’d like to be very raw with you about how beautifully painful it is to be in my 20’s figuring out life. If asked what my spirit animal is, I’d say for sure Dori from Finding Nemo. You see I have about a million thoughts going through my head at all times, about my career, my dream life, my diet, food that inspires me, where I might live, and how I will find that perfect person for me just to name a few. It feels like all these thoughts get me a little off course and I find myself often asking “can somebody please give me directions?”

One person I reach out to is my dad. Recently I packed up my mid-size SUV and drove myself all the way from Montana to Texas. I’ve traveled the world by myself, but somehow this felt like the biggest thing I’ve ever done. I moved having no job and no prior connections but trusting that somehow the Lord had something in mind for me. So far it has been nothing but a great experience and in just a months time I have learned probably more about life and adulthood than my whole life. I am thankful to have my dad and step-mom around fostering an environment for me that allows me to dream and talk through my struggles. They help me realize that it is OK to not have it all figured out but it is important to dream, and although that dream may change, I am never going to get anywhere if I don’t start putting one foot in front of the other.

You see friends, I have perfectionist tendencies, maybe you do too. My first instinct is to think that I have to have it all figured out and have this grand plan before I have something to offer. But the reality I constantly remind myself is I am enough with the skills I possess right now to help others and having life all planned out is probably only going to leave me more disappointed in myself. Remember at the end of Nemo when Dori remembers the address? That’s me; that’s us! You see we have the address inside of us already to accomplish our dreams, it’s just a matter of tapping into our own intuition. While it is wise to reach out to others for advice, its important to remember nobody knows us better than ourselves. So for now, I’m just going to keep swimming, swimming, swimming…. and you should too.

Love,

Abby

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