2015, How You Changed Me For the Better

Sparkler

As 2015 comes to a close, & a brand new unwritten year begins, I am thinking back on everything which occurred in the past year & to be honest, I am so amazed & impressed by all that has happened, & all that I have become. I have evolved. It was the type of year that started out somewhat rocky, but ended with a more beautiful & gentle sense of closure than I ever expected to find. The kind of year that makes me feel like maybe I need therapy or a long vacation or mere time to deal with all the phases & changes I went through, but simultaneously the kind of year that makes me feel like I have been deeply, vividly healed. It was the kind of year filled such with influential growth & complete reinvention & beautiful epiphanies & gentle, nurturing, startling, surprising change & rebirth, that I can only hope that 2016 will offer similar (or better, even more beautiful & ebullient) opportunities for happiness & becoming myself that this year has.

A brief overview of some highlights from 2015 //

★ Completed my A Thousand Cranes series by publishing the 10th book in the series, & therefore the 1000th poem in the series

★ Published 4 books (Panorama Novelty; Document Your Life : A Journal; Elephants [Wonderful Wildlife, Book 6]; & the aforementioned A Thousand Cranes, Volume 10)

★ Started my awesome zine, Ashlee Craft / Assemblage, & published 8 issues of it ★ Released my 2nd album, Confusion is Over, on YouTube

★ Launched this blog (!!!)

★ Completed many goals that I deemed made me successful, in my eyes

★ I learned an indescribable amount about myself : who I wanted to be, where I wanted to go in life, what I really wanted & really didn’t want, what my goals really were, & that I shouldn’t sacrifice my dreams in order to do all the things I was “supposed” to do. It was a year of stripping away the bullshit until what I was left with was a polished gem glittering with the authentic truth : the reveal was that all along, I’d had what I needed.

★ I finally started feeling comfortable being open with people & letting them see who I really was : ceasing to participate in boring small talk as a form of friendship or present a watered-down version of my personality just to conform to what others expect me to be or what I perceive will make me more similar (therefore “likable”) to them. A refusal to build a wall around myself, hiding in a way so that I am never vulnerable but also never loved or known. Finally becoming myself, & having the courage to do so.

★ Learning to love myself more. Learning to accept & see the greatness (& truth) in all the things that I previously found to be faults in myself. Finally being able to see myself as being good enough : always worthy of love & respect – knowing my thoughts & opinions matter, & that my choices are perfectly okay. Being able to see when I deserve better, & being brave enough to go after Better.

★ Happiness. Learning that happiness isn’t a weird elusive thing meant for someone other than me. Finally being able to say that in the past year, I have almost entirely overcome the depression & anxiety that used to be a constant shroud (although the process of overcoming has been going on for much, much longer); achieving a sort of healing happiness; finally feeling like things really will be okay, & that I am capable of feeling good about myself & my life, long term & so deeply & authentically.

2016, I am looking forward to all the magic you have to offer me; all the good things & bright spunky ebullience awaiting me. Here’s to us all, making this the best year of our lives so far.

★★★

 

 

Newness

This is My New... // Ashlee Craft / Assemblage, Issue 1 - ashleecraft.com

 

This is all new. This is pure newness & it can be whatever I want it to be. There are no rules, no boundaries, no constraints, no limits. I do what I want. I trust my own judgement because I believe in myself & I know how to trust myself, & I’ve learned recently that it is worth trusting myself. Only I can know what is right for me. Only I know who it is that I need to be, & only I can be the hero of my story.

It all makes sense now, newness does. Changes can be comfortable. It doesn’t have to be as difficult as it seems it will be. Beginnings make sense. Constant personal evolution, constantly being reinvented & reborn, makes sense. It is a matter of survival, of finding true happiness, of embracing life. This is how the tides change in my world. The feeling before newness is conflicted. Endings & beginnings mingling together, the last vestiges of sunlight dissolving & fading slowly, intermingling with the light of the moon, a moon which is illuminated by the next day’s sunlight, & it’s all mixed together in one beautiful palette of color, of things ending so that better things can begin, because we can’t know what these better things ahead of us are until we’re ready to let go of the dock, of the bowlines that keep us tethered there. Of course there are things we should hold onto, & promise ourselves we will never let go of. The things that we truly love, the things that make us happier than anything, the things we know are right. But sometimes we hold onto the old things, the things that weigh us down, the things that are no longer what we need them to be, the things we feel we have to keep under our control when in reality we’d be better off if we let our plans & ideas of the way things are be flexible.

It’s all part of continual personal evolution. Letting go of the things that weigh us down so that we’re free to fly. Letting go of everything that no longer make us feel light & happy & brilliant, because trust me, those feelings are out there, waiting for you, & you will find them if you ruthlessly cut out what doesn’t make you happy & enthusiastically seek what does make you feel happy & alive. You will find it. Tell yourself this whenever you doubt in your ability to reach the full potential you know you have, or are afraid to realize you do have, or worry that maybe you don’t have. Repeat these words, this mantra, every time you think the whole world around you is ending, & you’re thinking that maybe there isn’t possibly a way that you will end up with all the beautiful & brilliant things that you deserve. Tell yourself that you will find it, every time you question if you are in the right place, because right now, you are exactly where you are meant to be, & there are better things ahead. Things will get easier if you keep moving forward. Because sometimes the excellence of a new beginning is hidden among the confusing way that newness can feel, hidden among all the things you no longer are mixing with all the things you are just becoming.

This is your permission to make this whatever you want it to be. You know what is best for you.