by Joey | Jun 15, 2016 | Throwback
Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.
-Mr. Rogers
I tweeted out on Sunday night that if I had to pick one word to summarize the weekend, it would be disappointed.
It’s very easy to feel sad and disappointed in the world we live in today. The headlines are filled with tragedy, anger, slander and chaos. We hear the bad, very rarely the good. You remember the name of the murderer but often forget the victims.
We allow that to define our society. The bad and the negative. We’re quick to open our mouths and spew hate. We see only what we spotlight.
On Monday night, I stood in a strangers driveway hugging my friends goodbye after another day of defeat, unable to find their dog. The stranger offered her help all day long, offered her code into the private community, waded through thick woods in the 100 degree heat for no real reason. She had no loyalty to my friends. No loyalty to us. Just loyalty to the good.
As I stood there, I said out loud I really like good people. I paused then added, and I don’t really like people at all.
It’s the truth. I find I put too much expectation in people, always optimistic for the best only to be let down repeatedly. It’s my fault, people are quick to point out, for expecting too much. For expecting the good.
I’ll take that blame.
I don’t care.
I will always believe in the good.
I will always find hope.
In the midst of heartbreak, disappointment and utterly horrifying tragedy, I’m reminded of the good.
The good rarely makes it into the media. The good rarely finds its way to reviews. The good rarely makes headlines. But it still exists.
This morning, I got a text from my husband. Cal had been found and was returning to his home in Raleigh.
I broke down instantly, sobbing tears of relief and gratitude. This weekend, despite my disappointment, I saw the good.
by Joey | Jun 14, 2016 | Throwback
A few months ago, my neighbor came upstairs all excited. I just took this test that tells you what your love language is. You guys have to take it!
I was pretty sure I already knew what mine was, but I played along anyway. The test confirmed my suspicions: acts of service.
Studies have shown that we show others our love by acting out our love language for them, and I’ve found that to be so true.
Nothing gets me more choked up in a movie than when you can actually see love happening. You know the scene: character is distraught, faced with conflict and struggle on their own, trying to display independence and strength they’re not fully convinced of. They arrive home after feeling defeated only to find someone who loves them there, committed to standing in the trenches with them.
That gets me every. time.
That’s seeing love.
I will always value relationships more than anything else. I learned that early on, especially in work. I am the kind of person who has to work for myself because I crave the freedom to be there for people when they need me. I don’t like being caged in. A huge part of the reason I felt like I needed to leave my job was because more than once I felt overwhelmed with the urgent need to go home and be with my mom only to feel trapped in, taking care of a family that wasn’t mine. I loved them all the same, but it was hard to balance that complexity.
Saturday night, good friends of ours were involved in a terrible accident on I-40. Luckily, they were okay (relatively speaking), but their dog, spooked in the crash, bolted from the car. They were on a road trip, about two hours from home when the accident happened. They’re battered, exhausted, and now distraught. It’s been days, the dog has been spotted but not caught. Yesterday, I had a todo list a mile long, but I was distracted, my heart heavy.
Finally, around mid-afternoon, I gave up, hopped in the car and drove the little over an hour to be with them to help them search. Hours and hours later, we still came up empty handed, but there was something about standing all together at the end of the night that filled my heart right up. Their friends came from all across North Carolina, not waiting to be asked to be with them in their time of need. My friend said it best, at this point in our lives it’s far more about quality than quantity.
My last year in my twenties was spent processing the loss of an important friendship, accepting that they were never going to be the kind of friend I needed them to be, and questioning if they really ever had been. And over the weekend, the final blow delivered, I let it go.
Love is simple but we over complicate things. Love is uncovering what someone needs above all else, and giving it to them.
Today, above all else, I need your prayers to be with our friends.
by Joey | Jun 9, 2016 | Throwback
For those of you who think I have my life so together right now, let me confess this:
I’ve been secretly using my husband’s toothbrush for weeks because I keep forgetting to buy one.
Let me make something clear. I needed a change. I wanted a change. I did not inherit any money. I wasn’t handed a golden opportunity on a silver platter. My husband does not make boatloads of money. I assessed the risks, put a little faith in my abilities, and I jumped.
I have no funding. Hell, I don’t even have health insurance at this exact moment. Things look dreamy from the outside because as scary as all of this is, it feels dreamy and I’m radiating that, I know this. But if I’m going to do this, I want to be extremely transparent in order not to perpetuate this idea that good things only happen to certain people.
Good things happen to people who work their effing asses off.
And that can be you, too.
I just don’t want there to be some kind of misinformation that the stars lined up, allowing me to quit my job and pursue my dreams. That is so very far from the truth. In fact, quitting my job wasn’t easy for me. And it wasn’t some grand display of bravery, quite the opposite, actually. It was me standing across from my boss dissolving into a puddle of tears.
Because the only truth here is that I wasn’t happy. I’ve been through hell and back in the last year, doing my best to be as strong as possible for everyone else, trying to be the glue that kept so many pieces together. So instead of breaking, I shattered.
The only thing I could control in that situation was my job. The only person I could control in that situation was me. And crazy as it sounds, we often struggle to make decisions that will serve us and only us.
I am a people pleaser, a servant at heart. Qualities that are good until they destroy you. Because if you forget to throw yourself into the mix, ensuring that through your service you are also bringing yourself pleasure, everything crumbles.
And everything crumbled.
I do not have my life together. All I did was make a decision to try. I don’t want this journey to seem rosy, discounted as easy or unfair. I fear there are already too many people online pretending that success and happiness floated over them in a glittery bubble, raining smiles down on them.
That doesn’t exist here.
I promise you this, as I trek my way through whatever it is that comes next, I’ll bring you along. And I’ll be honest.
by Joey | Jun 7, 2016 | Throwback
This morning, I’m sitting in my tiny little office. My cup of coffee is too hot to sip on, a suitcase sits open on my bed waiting to be filled, and today is my last day in my twenties.
I spent the weekend in NYC. My husband surprised me with the trip to celebrate my 30th birthday, but it turned into much more.
In case you missed it, I quit my job. I’ve spent much of my adult life as a nanny, taking care of other people’s families. Struggling for my art. Important work, yes. Especially to those who have employed me. But the work wasn’t right for me.
I’m a dreamer, one who was often dismissed as I was growing up. Talking nonsense and making up stories, a wild creative at heart. So it should come as no surprise that Manhattan is my city. Those are my people.
And as I sat in the Gershwin Theatre on Saturday night nestled in between people who love me, words crashed in to my heart, simply defining this phase in my life.
I’m through accepting limits
because someone says they’re so.
It’s time to trust my instincts
close my eyes
and leap.
Many of you have asked what I’m doing. Why I’m doing it. And to be frank, I’m not sure I have a clear answer for you. Aside from a couple month’s rent in savings, a business that’s about ready to launch, and a million words floating around in my head waiting to hit the page, I don’t really know. It’s terrifying, but not as scary as seeing a future without any of this. And that’s where I was heading.
All of this came out of nowhere. A series of small catastrophes brought me here. I’m not sure where we’ll end up from here, but I do know I owe it to myself to leap. To try. To give it my all.
I spent my whole life up until now letting other people define me, never taking a stand for myself. We’re all much more powerful, more capable than we allow ourselves to believe.
We easily put faith in others, so certain of their capabilities. So I challenge you today, on my last day in my twenties, to put a little faith in yourself.
The struggles, the insecurities, they’re important, trust me. Little demons you have to face all on your own just to prove to yourself you can.
And you can.
by Joey | Jun 2, 2016 | Throwback
As I approach thirty, I’ve found myself on a journey, abandoning everything that once defined me on a quest to find my truest self.
It’s been interesting, identifying the parts of myself that I’ve worn like a cloak all these years only to now realize they weren’t right.
I settled. I accepted a life fueled by decisions I made before I was capable of knowing better. The thing about settling is that it’s often easier than the alternative. We settle because whatever it is, it’s a given. A guarantee. Whether right or wrong, it works. It’s a means to an end. A solution to an immediate problem. It’s fine.
It’s when we make the choice not to settle, to instead follow our hearts, that something strange happens. We feel relief. Freedom. Like we can breathe a little easier, if only for just a moment.
For me, not settling is about letting go. Of definitions I didn’t choose. Choices I didn’t know better than to make. Identities that no longer fit. Because the truth is, I could live this way for the rest of my life and there would be nothing wrong with it except that I wouldn’t be happy. I wouldn’t be fulfilled. I’d be following through with a plan that no longer makes sense for my life.
Choosing not to settle, while relieving, is equally exhilarating and terrifying. Deciding to stay has invited the question why continue on the temporary path?
As you’re reading this, I’m living out the last day inside a choice I’m letting go of, opening the door to the great unknown. I’ve chosen not to settle and to instead challenge myself. I’m rejecting this life, the one I have been unhappily cozied up inside for way too long because I was too scared to admit that it wasn’t right.
Today is my last day at my job. After today, I’m letting go of a label, a title I’ve carried around for way too long.
The choice to let go of something is rarely easy. There is often collateral damage. A happily ever after isn’t usually tacked on to these stories, but instead you find yourself experiencing the messy middle we all try so hard to avoid.
If you think you’re capable of more,
don’t settle.
Take the challenge.
Face the unknown.
I’m pretty sure we’re all going to be just fine.
More than fine.
