the miley cyrus bikini from walmart.

Since I’m on a cleaning-out-my-”Writing Drafts”-folder kick, I’m sharing a post that I started (and, surprisingly, finished) in 2015. Beyond my Drafts folder on Google Drive, it’s actually been sitting as a Draft on my website since then, too. I never published it because it felt vulnerable in a different way than some of my other writing did; a little too vulnerable compared to thoughts about love and faith and vocation.

This is a post about my body.

I’ve been hesitant to share this with the world because bodies are sacred and bodies are complicated. Our bodies are our temples, but they are often temples that we wish were a little thinner, curvier, lighter, tanner, something-different-than-what-they-are. We wish we had a temple other than our own. What I wrote in this post resonated with me, and I was nervous to put that in the world for fear it wouldn’t resonate with others. There was fear of writing the “wrong” thing about body image, of being judged for having these particular thoughts about my body, of making it known that I struggled with negative thoughts about my body that translated into something bigger than just “negative thoughts,” and that those morphed into a deep wrestling with my worth. I wasn’t ready to share this as it was all happening in 2015 -- the thoughts, the struggle, the therapy, the slow and draining work of moving through it all -- but I am now.

This post doesn’t ring quite as true to me anymore. I’m in a different kind of relationship with my body these days, one where I move it often and challenge it because that feels fun and good, one where I marvel at how strong it feels when I run and lift, one where I feel comfortable and confident in a way I never have before. And yet, some of this writing still does ring true.

My hope with finally sending this into the interwebs — as with all writing — is to shine the flashlight on the dark, messy parts of life, so that we can meet there and recognize that we’re not alone in that darkness. That, actually, we’ve never been alone at all.

--

I went to the coast a few weekends ago. The night before we left, I went to the website through which we had rented our cozy cabin. After reading the reviews and browsing through the accommodations list, I discovered the greatest hidden treasure in the history of girls’ weekends everywhere: THERE WAS A HOT TUB.

My heart immediately started doing the quick-feet, shuffle-around, happy dance. I opened our message thread and typed, “THERE IS A HOT TUB!” I envisioned sinking into the 103-degree, chlorinated water; pushing back into the high-powered jets for a free massage; letting the sunshine or the moonlight hit my face as I entered into full relaxation mode. I don’t claim to know what heaven looks like, but for an often-stressed full-time AmeriCorps volunteer, that hot tub was going to feel pretty close to it. Add a glass of red wine and best friends within arm’s reach, and it’d be like sitting next to Jesus himself.

But then, almost as quickly as I had started the hot tub dance, I stopped. A deep, loud, echoing voice came over the loudspeakers of my brain and said one word: bikini. My once-dancing heart quickly stopped; I morphed into an embarrassed 8th grader at her first school dance: shuffling over to stand by the wall, staring at her pigeon-toed feet, peering up through her needs-to-be-cut-(and-probably-washed) bangs, wondering why she came to this stupid dance in the first place. 

Because, in order to enjoy the hot tub, my body was going to have to put on a bikini. And I had not bought a new bikini since high school. 

I vividly remember making this bikini purchase. It was the summer before my senior year and I waltzed into one of the Fargo Walmart stores and found this strapless, ruffled Miley Cyrus bikini on sale. I would love to say that I bought it because it was an emergency: that I was on my way out of town, and there were no other stores around that carried bikinis, and that this particular bikini was the only one left in the entire store. But no. I voluntarily walked into a Walmart and bought a Miley Cyrus swimsuit.

I would also love to say that my swimsuit choice was the only reason that caused me to have such a strong reaction to my brain’s loudspeakers blaring “bikini.” But that would be lying, too. Because a lot has changed since 2008, including how I feel in that bikini.

Even though I knew that it was normal for my body to be different than it was in 2008, to have changed and gained and lost and grown, my initial reaction was some combination of “Shit. Damn. I don’t want to wear a bikini. Especially not this bikini. I don’t want people to see me in a bikini. Would it be weird if I just wore my clothes into the hot tub?”

It’s a shitty feeling, to question how you look and how you think other people think you look. It’s an even shittier feeling when that questioning and doubting about your body turns into questioning and doubting about you — all of you. Your worth, your enough-ness, your value as a human. There are hundreds of books and millions of words from folks who write about this struggle; the pressures from society and magazines and the omnipresent “them” who says we are to be a certain way. And, even more so, books and words about the pressure and unrealistic expectations we put on ourselves. The battle between logic (2008 was over SEVEN years ago! Of course my body is different.) and these subconscious beliefs about how we “should” look and feel and be turn into a constant loop.

But I packed the bikini anyway, right next to the muffled loudspeaker voice whispering “bikini.” And on that Saturday at the coast, when we decided to go into the hot tub, I pulled it (the bikini, not the loudspeaker voice) out of the corner of my duffel bag. I slowly pulled the two pieces of flowery, white fabric over my body. And then, armed with a glass of wine and two best friends, I went to the back patio. I felt the water with my free hand and remembered my initial reaction to the hot tub: chlorine! massage! relaxation! I balanced my drink on the ledge and shook off my cover-up.

Was I self-conscious about how my 24-year-old body looked in the bikini I bought for my 17-year-old body? Yes. Did the loudspeaker voice creep back in as I dropped my cover-up and stepped into the hot tub? Yes. Did I get in anyway? Yes.

There are shitty feelings that enter into our brains. This is a reality for humans everywhere, and those feelings come in about all sorts of things. Our jobs! Our families! Remembering that time we accidentally chased someone down on the street because we thought it was someone else! Our bodies! Our bodies.

This one’s especially present for women, for a lot of reasons: we live in a heteropatriarchal society that places our value and worth on how we look. How much we weigh. How our bodies look in bikinis and skinny jeans and tank tops. I was able to shut up the loudspeaker voice this one time, but the shitty feelings will inevitably enter again. And again and again.

But it’s an even shittier feeling to stay away from the hot tub, keeping your clothes on while everyone else splashes around. To stay against the wall at the school dance, watching everyone else do the Cha Cha Slide. To spend your time wishing that your temple was a little bit like hers, or that if you were just skinnier/more toned/tanner/anything different than who you are, that’s when life would -- poof! -- be different. That’s finally when you’d hop in the hot tub or dance the night away. It’s an even shittier feeling knowing that you are the only one who notices or cares about your armpit bulge and squishiness — and that you are the only one holding you back from doing the quick-feet, shuffle-around happy dance in your heart.

I have since thrown away the Miley Cyrus bikini from Walmart. I finally got one from a retailer that doesn’t have questionable labor practices and from a brand that isn’t named after someone I used to watch on the Disney Channel. Because whether it’s a hot tub or the Pacific Ocean or the Minnesota lakes, I’m not staying away. I have to get in the water and back on the dance floor. These are the places where life happens — real, squishy, sometimes-shitty life. And I hope I stay in the water until my toes prune. I hope I stay on the dance floor until my feet blister.

I hope you go to those places too, and I hope you stay.

resolve.

When I was in middle and high school, I would spend hours cutting up magazines: words written in thick or loopy fonts, photographs and images used for stories, recipes I wanted to try when I cooked my own food one day, bullet-pointed cures for acne and steps for what to do when you encounter your crush at the grocery store. I tore the pages off, cut out the words, and pasted them into an ever-growing volume of inspiration that still sits at my mom’s house. I got such joy from this activity — one of those things where I’d lose track of time for hours, emerge from my room twenty minutes past dinnertime. I didn’t have many hobbies growing up (and still don’t), but magazine-collaging would definitely have been one of them.

Sometimes, come December, I’d take my favorite clippings and put them on a poster board. These were my new year resolutions, the words and images and feelings I hoped to embody in the coming months. I’d match colors, mix fonts, and find words like “bold” and “do your thing” that would direct my coming year. I’d post it in my room and, truthfully, often forget about it. These posters became pieces of art that blended in with the rest rather than spaces to check-in about how I showed up in the world.

I was a teenager, consumed with boys and friendship drama and figuring things out, so it makes sense that I wasn’t totally focused on self-improvement or radical change in the early 2000s. But this year, I decided to do it again. I sat down with copies of magazines that had been piling up under an end table for months, turned on a James Bay Spotify station, and began cutting up the glossy paper.

I made a vision board. And I made resolutions.

In my heart of hearts, I know that January 1st isn’t different than December 31st. I know that New Year’s Resolutions hardly ever stick past the first week, and that people use this arbitrary date to have a fresh start or to turn a new leaf or to finally begin a new chapter. To lose the weight. To read the news. To save money. You can find article after article about this, about how making grandiose resolutions is, essentially, a waste of time because it likely won’t last.

And yet, I make resolutions of some sort every year. Some are more successful (in 2014, I made a resolution to get out of the city every month and I adventured twelve times) than others (I’ve had a goal of running a half-marathon since 2012). So far, nothing has drastically changed from 2016 to 2017 except the date on my iPhone. Yet January 1st is a clean slate in my planner and, year after year, feels like a good time to reassess where I’m at and what I want to change. Flipping the calendar to a new page feels like I can do so, too.

And this year, maybe more so than others, I need that.

Because 2016 has been filled with a lot of shit. It’s been filled with so much horse shit! There, I said it. It’s been terrible for the world — we are still in a war; there’s been a steady increase of horrific violence; and climate change isn’t going anywhere just because D. Trump says it doesn’t exist. For the country — racism and homophobia and sexism have a new, loud platform; Prince and the Brady Bunch mom and the Growing Pains dad died; and that last point about D. Trump very much applies here, too. It’s been a rough 2016 for me, too. I named aloud and struggled with depression, I had all sorts of doubts about my career path, and I was thrust into romantic drama and, subsequently, heartache.

I’ve seen the news stories, the listicles, the memes, which echo the overwhelming cry from humans around the globe. And I'm adding my voice, too: 

“2016 was awful. Let it be over, already.”

But December 31st, 2016 was not much different than January, 1st, 2017. While we can hope that 2017 will be better than what 2016 threw at us, we don’t know that. Donald Trump is still our president-elect. Aleppo is still burning. My heart is still a little sore. Maybe it will be enough to not see 2016 staring back at us every time we look at our calendars, phones, or email history. Maybe writing a new date on checks, job applications, or essays will be the small boost we need to help us move through the shit, the anger, and the pain that 2016 brought to us. We all deserve a chance to reset, recalibrate, and focus on a new beginning. We deserve an opportunity to wipe our hands of 2016, if we need or want to. We can’t, unfortunately, ignore it or pretend it didn’t happen — it will always be a part of our collective story as humans — but we can prepare our hands (and hearts) to hold the new, messy year ahead of us. 

I wrote my resolutions on index cards and stuck them on the wall, right next to my bedroom door, with sparkly gold Washi tape. Some are new (getting a 4.0 in my first term of graduate school), some are old (I still have hopes for that half-marathon). Some will be easy (taking time to adventure each month), and some will take a lot of work (reading 52 books!). Some are action-oriented (cultivate a daily writing practice), and some are hopes for how I will exist in the world (speaking up whenever my gut tells me to, even when it’s hard). And right next to those resolutions are my 2017 collage — a vision or inspiration board, perhaps. It’s a reminder of where I’ve come from and the resolve I have to keep moving forward.

I desperately need this kind of resolve to move forward — not despite 2016, but because of it. I need to believe that the world can be better, that I can accomplish goals for self-care, work, political engagement, and school. My resolve feels clearer when I think of my resolutions for 2017 in this light. How can I use my voice and words to speak up for what I believe in, and to denounce what I do not? How can I put the privilege I have and the money I make, into causes and organizations which contribute to the world I want to live in? How can I spend my quiet hours doing something that feeds my soul, so I can be recharged each day when I enter this big, messy world?

Despite the facts and research and articles, there’s something beautiful about this public declaration of newness and of change. Maybe I will read ten books this year. Maybe another year will pass where I will not run a half-marathon. Maybe I will not speak up at times when I should. But I need to believe that I will, and then offer myself grace if I don't. I need to believe that I can fully live into my intentions, that I can do as much as I can to make my corner of this world a little bit better each day. While I hope that 2017 will bring a new light and hope for our world, for now, I’ll just start with my vision board and resolutions. 

So, what is your resolve for 2017?

bright spots.

Today was supposed to be the day I was going to move from this bed on the floor to a real bed. It was supposed to be the day I was going to become the owner of my first real couch, and real bookshelf, and real mustard-colored chair. It was going to be the day where I finally moved books from boxes, and decorations from bins, and made Apartment 909 feel like home. But today is, now, just another day because after two hours on the phone with IKEA, my furniture isn’t coming. They lost my couch. They can’t deliver an incomplete order. They’re sorry.

No one wants to hear this. No one wants to hear that the furniture they paid for and have waited for isn't coming. No one wants to hear that the delivery day for which they took off work is now wide open, and a day in the near future, where they have to work, will now be filled with furniture delivery. Even in the midst of much shittier, heartbreaking things happening in the world and our lives, no one wants to hear this.

Once I got a hold of a real-life human, I think I handled the situation okay-ish. I asked the right questions, and didn’t yell, and only frustrated-cried a little bit. As I was being transferred to another real-life human, I apologized to Ashley for crying and being frustrated and not using the friendliest tone, and told her that I know this isn’t her fault. She laughed and said, “Girl, don’t worry. I lost my shit at Chick-fil-A the other day because they were out of the salad I wanted. Things suck sometimes.”

Once I got a hold of the other real-life human, I think I handled the situation alright-ish. I confirmed things that had been promised in my contract, and still didn’t yell, and only frustrated-cried a little bit more. When Maddie was helping me set up my new delivery date, we discovered she used to live right across the street from my new apartment. And as we were wrapping up the call, she asked, “Do you like sushi? There’s a really great place just right down the road. It’s called Blue Fin.”

And I guess why all of this matters is that while listening to the looped phone muzak while on hold, and finally eating my oatmeal that’s been sitting in the microwave since 9:30 am, and calling my mom and saying the F-word to her too many times, and sitting in the middle of the floor in my apartment, surrounded by bins of extra blankets and bags of books and a half-opened box of new sheets, I’m saying a little prayer for Ashley and Maddie. Bless their souls for being at the end of the phone line — phone lines with hundreds of people calling with questions and frustrations and tears every single day. For listening to, and creating space for, and being present with their callers’ complaints and words and feelings. Even if they think that callers like me are annoying or wrong or awful humans, they're still there. They still answer the phone and, I have to believe, try their hardest to make things better. They offer bright spots — today, in the form of Chick-fil-A salads and sushi recommendations — in hard situations.

I wanted to make this home feel more like home today, and I’m still going to do that. Who declared you need furniture to feel at home in a space? Today is the day for making this floor-bed a little more comfortable, for adding some photos of my favorite faces to frames, and for figuring out how to work my new laundry machine down the hall. Today is the day for finding the bright spots.

(And today is also the day for Blue Fin sushi for dinner, because Maddie said so.)

these leaves.

I've seen a lot of things on the news and in my newsfeed that have made me cringe or cry or both in the last week. Humans are messy (good grief, we're the messiest -- we need some Clorox wipes or a bath or something) and so are the things we do or say or post, and the things that we choose not to do or say or post. Sometimes it feels like no one cares about or loves or fights for each other anymore. Sometimes the world is depressing and you're certain that the light at the end of the tunnel is actually, definitely a big-ass train coming straight for all of us. That we're doomed.

So, with this in mind, posting a picture of my feet on the fall leaves, with my big-ass satchel and denim dress didn't seem right. (You've seen hipster Barbie's Instagram account, right? I fear she will use this photo as inspiration for her next post.) It made me feel out of touch with the realities and struggles of the world, too inwardly-turned in the midst of so much turmoil on this Earth. There are much more important things in the world to post about and talk about and raise our voices about than my feet and fall's arrival. I can think of ten off the top of my head right now. I'm sure I could think of another twenty if I really tried.

However. Here it is. My feet, my big-ass satchel, the fall leaves. Instagram Post #617. This post will be one of hundreds that will plaster the social network as the leaves begin to change colors, boots are pulled out of closets, and the Pumpkin Spice Latte makes it's return (which, as a new coffee drinker, I'm stoked to try for the first time). It will show up under #fallfeet and #fallishere and maybe be liked by people from around the world who are scrolling through the hashtags, spending their mental energy finding other people who have taken photos of their feet, their big-ass satchels, and the fall leaves. We live in a messy world, a world where we can mindlessly scroll on Instagram for hours and forget about those ten things that are much more important than the mindless scroll. We live in a messy world, where we can't even open the app for 48 hours because it seems so stupid compared to what's happening outside of the screen. 

So I'm finding middle ground, or trying to, to bridge those two messy realities. This picture is a #feetstagram, yes, but it's also a virtual representation of a pause that we all desperately need. A reminder that it's okay to take a deep breath (and a deep break) from all of the cringe- and cry-worthy things so we can show up to them again. And raise our voices and talk and post about them again. Taking a break (or posting a photo of our feet or our coffee or our face) doesn't mean that we care less or are no longer "good," conscious people or that we're banned from ever being social justice advocates or activists ever again. It means we are human. That we can't always take in everything that the world and the news and our newsfeeds throw at us. That we need to focus our attention on something like Instagram or Buzzfeed quizzes or Gilmore Girls to give ourselves a break.

And yet. It's not fair that some of us get to take a break, when so many humans have literally been running for refuge for days and months and, for some, years; or to take a photo of our feet, when so many of those humans' feet are tired and heavy and sore; or to take a moment to welcome fall outside our homes, when so many humans have not yet found a welcome place to call home. It's not fair, and that's shitty, and that makes me want to cringe and cry some more. But that's the reality of this messy world. And so we do what we can to try to cultivate a life where we're able to show up to the realities of the world as much as we can. Even if that means a photo of our feet.

It happened as I walked across the street to my apartment. I had just been driving in my car from a lunch date with a good friend. I was stuck in unexpected traffic and crabby, and so I (naturally) started replaying the images and articles that I'd come across on the news and in my newsfeed over the last 48 hours. I finally parked my car after 30 minutes of existential crisis. I felt physically exhausted, and I was still supposed to meet someone to go on a run (my first in at least two months) in twenty minutes. I needed a pause. As I walked across the street toward my apartment and stepped onto the curb, I looked down -- and found these leaves.

These leaves caused me -- for the briefest moment -- to see the light at the end of the tunnel as actual light and not a train of impending doom. These leaves reminded me that there are snippets of love and real light in the midst of the cringes and cries that show up on Facebook and CNN. These leaves reminded me to pause and think about all of those who cannot pause, who cannot rest, who cannot find welcome. To whisper a tiny little prayer for them, and for the world, that we may act and speak and care and love others.

To whisper a tiny little prayer for me, for us, that we may care for and love ourselves in the midst of that, too.

gratitude is hard.

"But grace can be the experience of a second wind; when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on."
-Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow

"I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up, and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.
Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.
You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever."
-Excerpts of Psalm 30, NRSV

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It started when I gave up chocolate for Lent.

It was my sophomore year of college, and 19-year-old me didn't think that Jesus cared too much about my abstention from Snickers or cupcakes. But I liked the idea of doing something that marked the season of lament and silence. Of looking through the world, and my life, through a different lens. I wanted to do something that showed God's love, especially to those about whom I cared so deeply - friends, family, mentors, past connections. So, after a purchase of some cute notecards on sale from Target, I decided to add something to my Lenten practice: letters.

Letters of thanks.

For 40 days, I removed myself from the typical millennial method of communicating and physically scripted letters of gratitude to the people and world around me. Sometimes I’d write as soon as I woke up in the morning, excited to remind my grandmother just how much her constant reminders of love lifted me up. Sometimes I’d write before I went to sleep, the last thoughts of my day a written prayer to my 10th grade English teacher, who inspired and mentored me to read books that challenged my perspectives.

The first year was easy. My expressions of gratitude were nice and neat. I wrote to friends who loved me, teachers who supported me, family who believed in me. The next few years were a bit harder. Have you ever written a thank you letter to the sun? How do you tell the the Earth beneath your feet, “Thank you for being there"? Can I ever fully express my love and appreciation and utter amazement for the woman who raised me on her own, my mother?

But then, this year. I felt the lament and pain in the world in a much deeper way than I had before. I wondered and often doubted how I would express gratitude every single day. There seemed to be more things that I grappled with and debated being thankful for than what I actually was grateful for. So, I called on that.

I wrote to my absent father. I wrote to the Church that caused (and sometimes still causes) me confusion. I wrote to myself. Not letters of anger or blame or revenge. Letters of gratitude.

Gratitude isn’t always easy. It isn't always nice and neat. Sometimes, the only way to encounter gratitude is to cry out, "Help!" and accept God’s healing—in whatever way that shows up—and to try to be thankful for what appears. 

Gratitude is hard. It is messy. But it is there.

These letters forced me to call upon grace. The last thing I wanted to do was write, “Thank you, Dad, for giving me life. Thank you, Church, for opening a space of questioning and discovery. Thank you, me, for being.” But those were the prayers of gratitude I needed to speak and share. They were my reality; they were my life. Like it or not, I was able to find something in the muck that caused me to say, "Thanks." It might have been buried deep down under great lament, and it might have required a little imagination, but it was there.

I had found my second wind. 

God doesn’t always answer our desires to express gratitude in the way we want. Sometimes God uses our cries for help as opportunities for unexpected gratitude. To channel the stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on. The weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning. God turns our mourning into dancing. Maybe not in the way we expect, but in a way that only God can.

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.