.In The Right Direction.

I'm not so sweet and wild anymore.

Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And let me tell you something: I am sure enough tired of the insanity.

I am no longer the girl who's feet wouldn't touch the ground; I am the woman who delights in standing barefooted in the damp grass. I am no longer the girl who doesn't remember to brush her teeth every night before bed; I am the woman who tucks a precious little boy into bed every night, teeth brushed, safe, and sound. I go to work, I pay the bills, I floss twice a day. I delight in the mundane things, the tedious, every-day tasks like making the beds and folding the laundry because it means that I finally am HOME. I'm finally where I belong -- not just physically, but mentally. My home has always been where my heart is and, for the first time in my life, it's not in some far away place. It's right here with my family, with my messy toddler and the spotted dog and the afghan my mom made me, in the old house where the wind blows through all the cracks. I am home, and I am whole.

This is the thing that I'm most thankful for this year. I am thankful for all the little things that make up the beautiful life I have, the one I always prayed for. So I'm making changes that reflect the woman I've become. I wear lipstick and boldly scented perfume, I drink my coffee strong and sweet, and crave the smell of horses, damp sagebrush, and vanilla.

Maybe there's still a little bit of the wild left in me, but mostly there is just strong. There is just solid. There are shoulders that carry the weight of the world sometimes, arms that carry my baby boy, hands that miss the way the reins feel in them, light as feathers. There is a heart that loves as hard and true as ever, but there's a brain too that knows just how much that heart deserves. There are guts and there is grit. Tears. Laughter. Eyes that always seem to have leftover mascara smeared around them and all the stars in the sky reflected in them.

I'm just Cassi, and it's pretty damned good to be me.

.Not Too Young To Care.

We're old enough to know better. 

And I've written these words a thousand times before in different incarnations, always erased if not from the printing, then from my mind. My dear, I have always adored you.

You, though; not that show you put on for the little wild things. I was wild once and maybe it suited you. But I was never so wild that I forgot where my heart lived...it damn sure wasn't some cowboy bar at last call, despite what you've heard.

Maybe I've got it all wrong but either way I just don't have a good feeling anymore. It's like never having enough quarters for the pay phone; you always run out of time.

We never did belong to each other.

If you don't know where you stand then it's time to start walking. I don't know how far I'll get but I'll give it a try. I think that sorrel horse of yours is fast enough to catch me. And if you can get a loop settled on, you better pull your slack and never fucking let it loose.

.The Greatest Love.

Of all the things I don't believe in anymore, romance was the easiest to let go. God knows I've probably never been in love and now I realize it too. Infatuation is an illusion, a distraction, a crutch for a broken soul. But Loving and being In Love are two different things...I've loved enough for a thousand hearts, because what is love but caring about someone and caring about what happens to them? I've wished them well on their journeys and thought of them on mine, but no one has ever been Home. They remember me a pretty face, legs for days, dangerous curves. I remember me using parts of myself to patch up their old wounds. There's more of me now than there was before both in the flesh and in the spirit and it's finally enough to fill the gaps and empty spaces, gild the cracks with gold and wear them like jewelry. You may think me a fool to turn you away but, my darling, you're the fool. You weren't the feather in my cap or the jewel in my crown...I'm the jewel, goddamnit. I'm the sparkle and the shine and the glittering symbol of my own queendom. I'll leave you with my perfume on your shirt on your own empty bedpost and I'll curl up with myself tonight, because I'm the greatest love I'll ever know.

.Postcards From Paris.

I want a postcard from Paris

and fingers perpetually stained with ink.

I want to wear my hair wild every day

with horse's hair braided in

and lipstick on bare skin.

I want peaty black tea every morning

and pink toenails hidden

in hand-knitted socks

and to make oatmeal and milk messes

with a blue-eyed little boy.

I want to believe in second chances.

I want to believe in romance.

I want your calloused hands and quiet soul

because I'm loud enough for the whole

world.

I want to ride bareback on a big sorrel horse.

I want an old claw-foot bathtub.

I want a Navajo rug.

I want a postcard from Paris.

.Baptized in the Bathwater.

Can this water get any hotter?

No, really. 

I think the only way I'd be satisfied is if it were hot enough to boil the flesh off my bones. Still, every inch of my skin is already pink and stinging. I imagine myself like an old wool sweater: worn and tired, stretched and stained, fragile and frayed. I submerge myself, let the water do its work. Soak into my fibers, clean them, shrink them. Rinse away the days past. Wring me out, reshape me. When I'm dry, I'm good as new. There isn't much that can't be swept down the drain at the end of the day. My darling, that is a blessing. 

The fight has not gone out of me, no...but it saves its strength for that which is truly worth fighting for. I sleep soundly under heavy blankets stitched with truth and love and real dedication. My dreams are sweeter than ever before. If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything...dear, I am done falling. 

But when I'm too tired to stand, I'll rest my aching bones and brain in the steamy water, and say a tiny prayer for each lavender-scented bubble that tickles my heated skin. I'm baptized anew each night in the bathwater, and I rise up with a clean heart, in better shape than when I started.

.Until Next Year.

I don't do resolutions...I can only do right here and right now. So here's a little snapshot of how I'm heading into 2015. Catch ya on the flipside, loves!

.Now and Then.

Now and then, I kick myself for being such an open book. Times like now, when I feel like a crumpled up piece of paper that somebody threw at the trash can. When the mad is gone and nothing but the raw hurt is left, I wish I was better at putting up a tougher shield.

But I am not. So I'll take the hurt. I'll let it throb in my guts and rise up like bile in my throat. I'll put it down into words like I always do, little as they may mean to anyone else. I'll let myself feel lost. I'll pull the blankets around me tight as if they could stop the cold that comes from the inside. I'll thank God for the fucking flu that means pretty soon I'll be knocked out on NyQuil instead of awake and praying for the phone to ring.

And maybe it's the fever talking, but I'll hold out the tiniest of tiny hopes that this isn't really another ending. The hopeful heart gets broken more than it gets held, but also gets another chance now and then.

.Thinking to Myself.

God, I feel like a rubber band that's being stretched too tight. It's my job to hold everything together but no matter how strong I've been eventually it's going to become too much. If I snap everything will be scattered to hell and back; but if I show weakness, I'll get thrown away. There's no room for weakness.

If I could just rest for a little while...will you help me hold it together? Unwind me for a bit, just one wrap or two and I'll come back as strong as ever. Should I break, though, the pieces will be mine and mine alone to pick up.

There ain't no rest for the wicked, but I promise I'll be good.

.Good Morning Sunshine.

I never was a morning person until I gave birth to one, and now I'm all about that early-to-bed, early-to-rise business.

It's still dark when that little voice pipes up from the crib across the room. There's no snooze button on that alarm. Feet on the cold, creaking floor (where the hell did I leave my slippers?), scoop up and snuggle the baby close until I get the thermostat turned up and the furnace groaning to life (his face is pure sunshine, and he pats my cheeks). Turn the burner on under the tea kettle, then turn it back off because who knows how long it'll take to wrestle Sam into a fresh diaper and get his breakfast fixed and in his squirmy belly...I can't count how many times I've boiled that thing over.

When the baby's dry and fed, and Curious George is holding his attention (although I'm not sure that felonious little monkey is the best role model), I finally sit with my tea cup in hand. God bless caffeine. From this chair, I have the perfect view -- the morning sunlight is just peeking pink and orange over the tops of the foothills, dusting the frosty backs of the horses as they stir and snort their request for breakfast. The goats aren't even awake yet.

The tired doesn't even register anymore, except at night when I tuck into bed under the big afghan my momma made me. And even then, it just feels like a day lived fully. When the baby's snoring and my last goodnight has been said, my heart flutters with contentedness and love. The demons that still live inside me don't get much of my time anymore. Someimes they rise to the surface to fight with sweet dreams for my attention, but at the end of the day there's too much waiting for me on the other side of sleep to revel in their company for too long.

.Hurricane.

What's the use in wanting? I talk too much, feel too much, am too much.

And no one stays longer than a season for when my weather turns cold and ugly they depart for sunnier places where flowers always bloom, forgetting that the cold won't last forever.

Forgetting or not caring, but I can blind you with the shining of my soul if you just wait for the spark; as fast as the storm in me rolls in, the clouds part.

Make the best of my rainy days, for nothing grows without rain. Dance in my puddles, let me sing you to sleep.

Every paradise sees a hurricane.

.Muses.

You can't be afraid if you're going to be a writer. You can't have shame, you can't have doubts. There's no caution in art...only passion. You write what you know; you write what you want to know. You make the adventures, and make them grand. You make people fall in love and you make them fall apart.

That's life, too; all those moments when you have to make the choice between listening to the voices that say you shouldn't and the electricity that starts your heart back up when you've lost the inspiration to really live.  

What do you want to write? What do you want to live for?

.Me, In The Words Of Others.

“I could see why Archimedes got all excited. There was nothing finer than the feeling that came rushing through you when it clicked and you suddenly understood something that had puzzled you. It made you think it just might be possible to get a handle on this old world after all.” 
― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses

“I suppose I really seemed mad, then; but it was only through the awfulness of having said nothing but the truth, and being thought to be deluded.”
― Sarah Waters, Fingersmith

“You have a spine of steel and fire in your eyes... To have such a quality, one must be shaken to the foundation of one’s soul and put back together. I want to know how you emerged from hell made of steel and fire.” 
― Moriah Densley, Song For Sophia

“But she had learnt, in those solemn hours of thought, that she herself must one day answer for her own life, and what she had done with it; and she tried to settle that most difficult problem, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working.” 
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.” 
― Joseph Conrad

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.” 
― Anaïs Nin

“I would always rather be happy than dignified.” 
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Better to be strong than pretty and useless.” 
― Lilith Saintcrow, Strange Angels

“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.” 
― Jane Austen, Persuasion

.Even The Moon.

I know I don't have much to say these days.

All the tortured-soul things I could spin sentences about once upon a time have kind of spun themselves out. No heartbreaks, no misadventures, no done-me-wrongs left; let's face it, batshit crazy has kinda been my thang for, well, ever...and batshit crazy makes for good stories. What does a girl write about when she can't write about chainsmoking and whiskey and doing all those gloriously debauched things that make a her simultaneously hate herself and feel invincible in the morning? 

I can't say. I don't know. A zebra can't hide her stripes, and my particular brand of dysfunction is as "me" as my green eyes...to sweep it under the rug completely would be to reach Stepford-wife levels of fakeness and I just cannot do that. I also can't go back to being Momma-Before-She-Was-Momma. There's a little boy who deserves far better than that cuckoo-bananas bitch.

So I keep my crazy a little more just-for-myself. It's in the perfume I wear that's just a little too sexy for daytime, in the black nail polish that I reach for more often than not; it's in the "hey, remember when?" conversations I have with old friends, and the last bittersweet thoughts I have of Metallica and Marlboro Reds before I fall asleep almost every night. It's in my iTunes playlist where you'll find more heavy metal than mushy love songs, in my favorite Tim Burton movies, and in the fact that my favorite words are still very unladylike ones that I say as often as possible when tiny ears aren't around to hear them. It's just half a bubble off plumb...

...but hell, even the moon has a dark side.

.Conversations With Myself.

"Powder your nose, paint your toes, line your lips and keep 'em closed."

You're spending more time on social media than on life, delete the apps and pick up a freaking book.

There is really no need to drink THAT MUCH Mountain Dew, and cookie dough is not the breakfast of champions. ((Except on Saturdays, because...just because.))

Seriously girl...moisturize, moisturize, moisturize. You already stay up an hour past your bedtime to read that book every night, what's another 10 minutes? You look like Rango.

FLOSS, for shit's sake. Mouthwash doesn't cut it, and your dentist WILL notice.

I don't care if you only scribble out three words today and you misspell one of them. You need to write.

Little Sam doesn't hate you. His gums hurt and he doesn't feel well. Just hug him tighter because he needs his momma more than ever.

That mascara makes your eyelashes look amazeballs. Put on two coats. Every day.

I know wearing that stubby french braid all the time sucks , but your hair's growing so fast. Don't give in.

You may not feel like it but you're doing a good job. Though it always feels like there aren't enough hours in the day or dollars in the bank, you've got a happy baby, a good ink pen, and your bills are paid on time. 

Everything is a process. Keep going -- don't quit yourself yet.

.Family and Friends.

This weekend, my son's dad came to visit him for this first time since he was born, and it was definitely a learning experience for both of us.

We never really had a relationship to speak of, and much of my pregnancy was spent at one another's throats about the situation we were in. He was there for the birth of our son (he lives in another state) and stayed with me in the hospital, but it was a very tense time and even in first few weeks after that I was very angry at him for a lot of things. Even so, he checked in every single day to ask how the baby was doing and I sent him pictures and videos, and I tried my level best to put aside my hurt feelings for the sake of my child. So when he told me he was going to be coming back home to Idaho to see Little Sam, I felt an overwhelming mix of emotions from anxiousness to excitement -- I wasn't sure how we were going to get along but I couldn't wait for him to see all the amazing changes our baby had already gone through in the six weeks since his dad had seen him last.

We decided that he would stay at my house rather than his parents' so that he would be able to get up during the night with the baby and spend as much time actually doing daddy things as possible. I wasn't entirely sure that I wouldn't smother him in his sleep, though he promised me he'd do his best to stay out of my hair. I wasn't convinced, but I knew the arrangement would be the best for Sam so I made sure the spare bed had clean sheets and gave the bathroom a half-hearted once-over with a Chlorox wipe.

It turned out to be the best decision we could make.

He learned how to make bottles and put Sam in his car seat, and how to give him a bath. He learned how to deal with Sam's fussiness, was there when our doctor diagnosed him with acid reflux and prescribed him medication, and he stayed up nights when Sam wasn't feeling well. When Sam could only sleep in his bouncy chair, his dad slept in the recliner while I slept on the couch, and when Sam was hard to comfort he rocked him to sleep and would sleep with him on his chest for hours, both of them snoring like freight trains. For a whole weekend we went everywhere as a little family unit. It was uncomfortable and awkward at times, but I remembered the good reasons that I had been so fond of him in the first place, and I watched him fall in love with our little boy and glow with pride when he showed his son off to friends and family. We were able to just be parents without any of the other bullshit getting in the way.

We are single parents. We will never be a couple. We have separate lives and that is how it will stay. But we are friends now, I think, and we are a family. His family is extremely welcoming and kind to me as the mother of his child, and my son is surrounded with love. I know someday that Sam is going to ask why his daddy doesn't live with us, but I don't fear that day as much as I used to because whatever the answer, he'll always know that Momma and Dad love him more than anything. He'll always feel that his family is whole -- even if it is a little different -- because we love him enough to put aside any differences that we may have had and put his best interests first. As a mother, that is one of the biggest blessings I could ever receive, and I will forever be grateful for it.

.Love, Part Two...A Thank You.

So it's about 4 in the morning and I'm doing that paranoid-mom thing where I don't sleep because I have to get up every five minutes to make sure my baby is still breathing, and so I'm also doing a lot of being on the internet to occupy the time when I've not got my ear pressed to my son's chest. Just a few hours ago I posted something on the blog and the feedback it's gotten has been pretty overwhelming, so I had to write this to express my feelings about all of the positivity I've received in return for just saying what's on my mind.

I'm not very good at making things up which, as a writer, is kind of a shitty trait to have. I can't count the number of projects I've started only to have them fizzle out early on, and this blog is no different. It started out as a place for me to air out my soul and get things off of my chest...I had piles and piles of what I suppose you can call essays or poetry or whatever it is that I write and they were just collecting dust on my hard drive. As it went on I tried to do the things my blogging friends were doing; motivational posts, reviews of stuff, lists, etc., but the response for those things just wasn't good. Personally, I think it's because it was obvious I was trying too hard to be a "blogger." I'm not a blogger, I'm a girl who writes from my heart and puts it on a blog for the world to see.

The "poem" I posted was a true story. Everything I write is true. It's kind of a mirror for me to examine myself in, to put these things out there in the open forces me to be honest with myself. As someone who has been dealing with deep depression and anxiety for years and years, it's pretty easy for me to just bury myself under the covers and hide. It's pretty easy to blame the mental disease for everything instead of facing it and facing the issues I've had and fixing them. I'm fucking broken; it isn't easy to admit to myself or anyone else. I could chalk all of my misadventures up to youth and just having fun, but that would be a flat-out lie and that's against everything I stand for. All of the mistakes I've made and all of the bad judgement calls were because of my brokenness, because I was looking for ways to fill the voids inside or to distract me from the tangled mess of a person I am.
Or was, I should say.

I'm sure as hell not "cured," but I'm better. I'm finding my way through my own bullshit to see that I'm a person with a purpose in life, things that I'm good at, and something worthwhile to say. I'm not ashamed of who I am or who I've been. I've had dark times I thought I'd never get out of. I've had times where I've used alcohol as a band-aid. I've looked at relationships as a meter of my worth as a woman, and I've chosen men who were physically and/or emotionally unavailable because I myself didn't know how to have a normal, healthy relationship...or I just didn't want to be bothered with one. The fact of the matter is that the sole reason I am a mother is a combination of all of those things. I had a baby completely by accident, and it came about for all the wrong reasons. I am at this precise point in my life because up until this point I have lived my life entirely "wrong." But the question becomes this: Is it really "wrong" if it has led you down exactly the right road?

I know deep in my heart that I am on the right road. It is a bumpy road, with many twists and turns and no signs posted along the way to steer me in the right direction. I'm driving this one by feel alone, but I think God is guiding my hand on the wheel. I think if I keep following my heart I'll end up where I need to go. I think if I keep listening to my gut, I'll be okay. Each day I travel one more mile and take in the scenery, and I mend just a little bit. I will probably always be broken, I think some people are just that way, but it isn't a curse anymore. It's the map I'm using to find myself. When you're wounded and the wound turns into a scar, the scar tissue is tougher than the skin around it. I am tougher for my scars, and I'll wear them proudly as a testament.

Maybe some of the stuff I've written or will write will hit close to home for somebody. Maybe some with find it pathetic or dramatic, maybe it might be too much for some to bear. But that I've written something that so many told me they were touched by only proves to me that I've been doing at least one thing right...choosing to live my life with complete transparency and baring my soul at the cost of my pride, being vulnerable when my very nature is to shut myself off and protect all my tenderest parts.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I am HAPPY. It isn't easy, but it's worth every blessed second. I will struggle, I will fall, I will get back up and I will keep going.
And I will write about it, because even when I feel like I have nothing, I still have the words.

Thank you to every single person who reads this, or has ever read it. It means more to me than you will ever know. I truly love you all.

.Love, I Think.

I used to love the chase.
I used to love late night text messages and last-minute plans, a swipe of C.O. Bigelow peppermint lip gloss and pulling on my boots at midnight for an adventure.
I used to love empty beer cans in the back of my pickup and Marlboro Reds from his shirt pocket.
A Metallica song came on the radio. "I should marry you..." he said when I turned it up and sang along.
"If you were smart, you would."
He was probably joking.
I was probably not.
I used to love the dark side of mornings, shooting stars over the desert punctuating thoughts I'd have been better off not having, and the highway home after nights that lasted too long.
"I'm going to be on the wagon...I'll call you when I get to town next time."
"I won't hold my breath."
And I didn't.

I never really knew what love was.
In my mind Love was bucking horses and pick up horses and big loops and years of conversations in a language of what-ifs and probably-nevers, Seven and Sevens, you-should-come-see-mes and maybe-I-wills.
In my mind love was a possibility.
I never wanted to know what was in his mind.
I still really don't know what love is.

"I heard you're gonna calve out."
"That's a hell of a way to put it."
"I'm gonna lose service...I'll call you when I come off the wagon."
"I won't hold my breath."
And I didn't.

I can't stand the chase.
The phone doesn't ring anymore and I barely notice it...a year's worth of wagons and works have gone by since I wore that lipgloss. I don't even remember where I left it.
Sometimes I find myself craving a Marlboro red and the scent of smoke and booze on a breath that touched my face.
A Metallica song comes on the radio. "He should've married me..." I say, then I turn it up and sing along.
If he was smart, he would've.
The baby's with his grandma and I'm going ten miles an hour over the speed limit to get home.
Home is finally where my heart is.
At least that's a love I do understand.

.Odd Duck Stuff.

A couple of days ago, Liz from Buckaroo Barbie posted a blog of all the little quirky things that she celebrates about herself (read that post here), and Erin from Diaries From The Dirt Road made her own list based on Liz's original post. I loved reading them both, and decided to hop on the train as well. I sat down with pen and paper to do mine, and realized that I have so many habits that others might think are strange or silly, but to me they've never been anything but normal. Just goes to show that your perception of yourself is what really matters, as long as what you do makes you happy! Here are a few of the things I wrote down:

• I have to put my pants, socks, shoes, jackets, etc. on left side first...no exceptions. If I do it in the wrong order, I take it off and start over.

• I feel incredibly naked and self-conscious without earrings in or my toenails painted. Everything else can be a hot mess, but I've always got to have just a little bling and polish.

• I went to cosmetology school. I love makeup and hair products and tend to hoard and collect them, and spend hours reading beauty articles and watching beauty tutorials on YouTube. I know ALL the tips and tricks. However, I rarely wear makeup or do my hair and, when I do, I always wear the same trusty products and styles no matter the occasion.

• I like plain sorrel horses. No, I love them. The more orange and ordinary they are, the more pleasing to my eye.

• I freaking LOVE trucks, especially cow trucks. I love riding along and have since I was a teeny little thing going in the truck with my grandpa.

• I feel emotions toward inanimate objects. I'm afraid they get lonely, and I worry about what might happen to them.

• In my opinion, cacti are prettier than even the most delicate of flowers.

• I can't eat fresh eggs, except those from one awkward black hen we have. I can't explain why either.

• The most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me was while checking cows during a blizzard...I got off my horse to run into the calving barn for something or another and before I got back on, this particular fellow wiped the caked snow off my saddle seat for me. Give me little gestures like that over any rose bouquet any day. 

.The Newest Adventure.

What is it about learning that you're becoming a mother that changes you so completely?

I don't know, it hasn't happened yet.

In the five days since I discovered that I am expecting, I have waivered in between various states of shock, panic, and sheer terror. THERE IS A TINY HUMAN BEING INSIDE MY BODY. I, the girl who forgets to feed the dog and has spent my entire life floating from place to place with no cares in the world, am going to be responsible for a little baby boy.

Oh, sweet Jesus, bless his teeny heart...I apologize in advance.

But underneath the anxiety, I know that we're going to be okay. I have a great support system in the form of my momma and my grandma who have been holding my hand through the whole process, easing my paranoia and laughing at my discomfort as only a woman who has been there can...I think I'm dying half the time, but they assure me that I'm not really, and that this is nothing compared to what's coming in the next few months (thanks, thanks a whole lot).

I find myself worrying when I lay down at night. How will I teach this little boy everything he'll need to know about being a good man? Will his daddy someday be around to teach him, or will I have to figure it out on my own? How will I protect him from all the bullshit in the world that surrounds him, when it seems that there is more and more sadness and anger and negativity and pure evil every single day? Will there still be sagebrush country for him to ride when he grows up? So many questions and I have no answers.

Still, I look at the women that raised me and the men that served as father figures to me, and all the wonderful people that helped me through life and taught me the things I know and I am confident that my son will be surrounded by the best people there are to grow up with. He'll have a few good wings to huddle under and a few good brains to pick, and somewhere along the way I'm sure he'll grow up having learned all he needs to be okay in the life he'll make for himself one day.

I used to pray for a good man to love forever. I had no idea that one would be made from my own heart. It isn't what I had in mind, but creation knows what its doing. So for now, I'm going to get used to the flutters in my tummy and not being able to button my pants, and look forward to what's coming. After all, it's only once in a lifetime that a girl goes on the adventure of being a brand-new momma.

.Explanations.

I don't owe you an explanation.

You don't owe me one either, but I never asked.

My choices are mine alone; I am the only one who has to live my life in my body in my world and be content with my actions and the people and things that surround me. I don't have to tell you why I'm not friends with this person, why I love that person, why I don't like getting drunk anymore, why I'd rather spend my time alone with a book than trying to impress people who don't even like themselves. I don't have to explain my gut feelings to you, my hopes or my dreams, my beliefs or my relationship with my higher power.

I don't have to tell you why I use the gear I use on my horses, I don't have to tell you who my family is or where they're from so you can judge whether or not I belong; I don't have to tell you about the scars on my face or my body or how many bones I've broken or why my pinkie toes are crooked or why I never got braces on my teeth.

You are not entitled to every detail of my existence.

It's a privilege when someone decides to share a part of themselves with another. It's a privilege when a heart is opened and a stranger is invited in. It isn't a right, and the invitation can be revoked as quickly as it was given...without explanation.

The only person anyone owes anything is themselves, and the biggest promise one can make to oneself is to be discerning when choosing what and who to allow in. Treat yourself like a treasure...not everyone deserves to have the map.