all are welcome here

Anyone who truly knows me realizes there are certain hard facts I hold true in life. I’m not talking about the people who have logged the most hours or sent the most messages. Not those who share my same blood or DNA. I’m calling out those individuals that have been truly able to crack the almost impenetrable shell of a guard I keep around my soul. The iron curtain I have built around my heart after decades of self-hate and doubt, years of criticism and opinions I’ve let rule my life, failed relationships, and heartache after heartache.

I’m talking to the misfits in the back of the room trying desperately to simultaneously fit in while also doing their damndest to not be noticed. Those longing to be accepted and loved for who they really are, but never wanting to truly be in the spotlight. Those that are reaching for both ends of the spectrum to fill the need of both their mind and their heart and stretching themselves so far that even the faintest breeze is a threat to your sanity and wellbeing. Those who lived like that for so long that they couldn’t stand it any more and finally threw in the towel and decided to call a spade a spade. To accept that they needed to be their own individual hue and not the whole damn rainbow. Those are my people. My squad. My true soulmates.

If you feel you fit that bill, I’m certain we’ll get along just fine. If not, that’s okay too. All are welcome here. That’s the glorious beauty of the misfits. We all have our own special brand of weird. And we’re always willing to accept the other versions. We feel that doing life with those that don’t look like us, love like us, believe like us, vote like us, feel like us, think like us all makes us better. If we were all meant to be the same person, life would a lot more boring and we would all have an address that falls squarely within Stepford, Connecticut. According to scientific theory, there are an infinite number of colors in the rainbow. More colors than there are stars in the universe and cells within your body. And yet it takes all of them to make the gorgeous sight we see above us after the massive thundercloud moves along to rain on someone else’s parade. We’re all necessary and we all must come together to paint the unique piece of art we call life.

As to those hard facts I hold as truths, all will be revealed in due time. There’s no way I could even begin to cover them all and do each their justice in just one post. But I will start with one…

Garden State may be one of the most profound and extremely underrated films of our generation. Mark my words. Fight me on it. I will stand my ground until my last breath. It could be the genius cinematographic work of Mr. Braff himself, the twisted and surprising sense of humor, or that I relate with the protagonist in an alarming manner. Above all else, it is certainly and most definitely the soundtrack. It’s a go to and a staple in my rotation on Spotify. Feeling happy and celebratory? Feeling a little low and need something to speak into your soul? Need to reconnect with home and the friends you hold dearest in life? Taking a solo road trip across the country? Want to just live inside Zach Braff’s iPod for a day? All the answers can be found in that album.  It’ll change your life, I swear. (I know I know. That was trite, but I just HAD to go there!) Which brings me to my last point on the movie: so much truth can be found in the script and the words written by Zach and I can generally find a quote from that movie to go with any situation. Let’s face it: I’m a girl that talks in music lyrics and movie quotes!

There’s a scene deep into Andrew’s journey to self-discovery in which he has a moment with Albert, a man living at the bottom of a quarry protecting an underground phenomenon that was found while digging a foundation for a shopping mall. We all know how Jersey feels about their malls… One of my favorite quotes comes from that scene. Andrew wishes Albert good luck exploring the infinite abyss. The infinite abyss is so much more than that underground cavern. It’s life and all of the joys and trials and chaos that come with it. We all have to pull on our boots and start to trudge through and learn how to navigate anything and everything that is thrown our way. Otherwise, we’ll miss out on all of the beauty that can be found in the darkness. I want to tell you hard stuff and funny stuff and truths. Things I’ve learned from the past. Things I’m still learning. And then those things that we will learn together in our explorations. In the scene, Albert reciprocated his tidings of good luck to Andrew and I do the same to each and every one of you, friends.

Good luck exploring the infinite abyss. 

xx, A