Broken Crayons Still Color

I've been thinking a lot lately. Shocker, I know. A friend of mine reached out to me a few months ago about my blog. He talked to me about how he had been tossing around the idea of starting a blog. I asked him what he wanted to write about. His reply really shocked me. He told me he often keeps his opinions to himself and is a "people pleaser" during conversations to avoid any arguments or disagreements between him and his friends. He told me that if his friends knew what his real thoughts and feelings on different topics were they would be really surprised. I was shocked! I didn't think he was one to just go with the crowd. I explained to him that I thought that was a great thing to write about and how I have worked my way out of being that same way. We talked about how keeping our mouth shut doesn't do any good in the long run and eventually it starts to really wear on a person to feel like they can never voice their opinion without feeling like your friends wi

"Home isn't a place, it's a feeling" South Dakota will always be my home. The house I grew up in, where my parents still live, will always be what I refer to when I say "I'm going home". While I'm not someone who moved around a lot as a child, or an adult for that matter, I have lived in four different cities and several different apartments and a had a few different roommates. The first time I moved out it was into the dorms at college. Then I moved home for summer. When the new semester started, I moved into an apartment with my sister's best friend. When she moved out to live with her boyfriend at the time, one of my friends moved in. Then I moved home (my parent's house) before moving to Aberdeen. I had a cute little apartment to myself up there. When the rent got too high a year later, I moved down the street into an apartment my friend was previously renting. A couple of years later Matthew moved in. We moved to Sioux Falls in 20

I would LOVE to write an entire blog post about how amazing life has been lately. I want to brag about how far I have come, what I have accomplished, and how happy I have felt. Unfortunately all of the good that has happened in the past few weeks has been drowned out by some shitty days. Shitty feelings. Panic attacks.  Feelings of discourage and defeat. You may be thinking to yourself "Oh imagine that, another bad week" or "Does she ever have good days" or "When DOESN'T she feel like that". I'll be honest, those phrases have crossed my mind as well a time or two. What I will tell you is that this is the nature of the beast. I have learned that when things are going well I am so caught up in the moment and able to be fully present that I don't really have thoughts past "Wow, life is good!" As in, I don't have all of these things and ideas ruminating in my brain to write about. I wish it didn't work that way; it's something