wine bar.

i'm going to open a wine bar.

i have to say it like that. i have to say it like it's real. because otherwise i'm going to chicken out.

ladies and gentlemen, i'm opening a wine bar!

i know it's coming out of left field. my life is like “babies! yoga! exercise! green food! homemade cakes! cartoons! jokes! being obsessed with my really handsome and sarcastic boyfriend and his ever evolving facial hair!” nowhere in that equation was there any mention of wine, a possible penchant for becoming a business owner, or a suggestion that i am a risk taker of any kind (the fact that i moved cross country for a boy i barely knew is misleading. that is basically the only risk i ever took, and it was solely because, as aforementioned, nic is really, really handsome).

but it's where i am right now and it's happening.

so far it's only happening in my head, so don't get overly excited/ terrified yet, but i'm in the phase where, like in yoga, a teacher says, imagine pressing down into [some part of your body] to activate [some other part of your body]. and that imagining, that simple act of focusing your mental energy into something actually ignites something else in your physical body. i'm in activation mode.

there are so many details to share, but i will start with how i got here.

it's twofold and really quite simple.

first and most obvious, i kept wanting to go to a wine bar. normally, i pretty much exclusively want to drink beer. i know a lot about beer. i enjoy beer. i could drink beer all day. but after i did whole 30 and become a totally annoying person, who generally tries to avoid gluten (except that i occasionally/ frequently have crackers/ bread/ pizza/ cake/ beer. so... i don't avoid gluten at all. except i've convinced myself i do. but my delusions are not the issue here), sometimes i just don't want beer. beer, in all its majesty, makes me really full and bloated and gassy.

sometimes i just want a glass of wine. there's wine here obviously. one can purchase wine at many places. but it's not represented in the same way that bourbon, cocktails, and craft beer are.

i have no benevolent mission to bring an underrepresented alcohol to justice in kentucky. i'm not fighting the great fight. sometimes i really just want to sit in a wine bar and have a glass of wine. and there are a few places here, which i'm certainly not going to talk shit about, because hating on your future competitors (or anyone for that matter) is tacky and gross, but none of them are just quite what i was looking for.

so anyway, i kept finding myself saying that over and over. it would be a random warm day at 5 and i would say to nic, you know what i want? i want to go to the wine bar that doesn't exist.

and we joked about starting one. and then the joke kept happening. and now i'm writing these words. that's the obvious reason for starting a wine bar: i want it, and it doesn't exist, so i'll make it myself.

but that was just item one.

item two is more important. anyone, who has trudged through my previously-written words knows my constant tale: my struggle to love myself, to feel valuable, to manage my anxiety. it's been magnified lately, specifically the anxiety. i recognize often that i'm just moving to move. i'm organizing, cleaning, straightening, shifting, tapping, biting my nails, exercising, i'm doing 14 things at once and all of them are nothing. i can't sit still. i feel like i'm buzzing. i talk about becoming a barre instructor, a yoga instructor, about joining crossfit, going for a hike, organizing the basement, repainting the hallway, landscaping the yard. they are activities that would be awesome, if the energy behind them wasn't so desperate seeking anything other than exactly the activity. but the energy is asking for much much more. i am frenetic. and it is not okay. it doesn't feel okay.

one day nic and i take a walk and he basically says that i'm running in place. i'm distracting myself.

of course, i get mad at him. i am offended, because i feel like i'm working hard at work and at home, both physically and emotionally. and when he says that, i assume he means that everything i'm doing is pointless.

but then i realize he's right. i'm stuck. i'm stuck doing the same things i've always been doing, even though i have evolved as a person. i am doing safe. i love love love working with kids, and i intend to do so in some capacity always, but i can't see myself just teaching until i die. i can't see myself barely scraping by financially until i die. i can't see myself just working for someone else, just as they've prescribed, until i die. my school is a magical beam of light in a place i thought such beams did not exist. but it's also just so safe. and i am fulfilled by it in so many ways, but then there is still this buzzing. i don't want to not be a teacher. i just also need something else.

and so part of what's hard and weird in my journey to “love myself” is that i actually don't believe for a second that i'm not valuable or lovable. when i'm honest with myself, i think i'm funny and empathetic and loving and wild and weird, in a tolerable way. i think i'm relatable. i think i'm easy to be around, and i work hard, and people actually really like to be around me. but the stories i tell myself about myself get in the way. i default to this played out, high school story that i'm awkward and terrible. i default to doubt and people pleasing. i default to feeling powerless. my mechanisms are off. i'm wired all wrong. i don't not love myself; i just don't know how to let myself operate like i do.

and i realize i've flip flopped back and forth a trillion times. one day i'm announcing how much i love myself and the next i'm wallowing that i'm a piece of shit. i get that i seem crazy. but both are true. that's the problem.

and i think, what nic was sort of saying and what i really need to access that part of me that lets myself love myself, is to just do something that's all mine. to do something where i'm not asking anyone if it's right, because it is right for me. i feel like i need something creative and unique and personal. i clearly need to move, i clearly need to get out my energy. i just want it to be for something. i want to build something. i want my effort and sweat and ideas to evolve into something i can share. i want to do something big.

wine isn't big. honestly i don't give a shit about wine.

but taking a risk and doing something that's mine is.

so this is my risk.

i have an idea for a very simple wine bar. it will be no frills. it will be welcoming and easy. it will only be employed by similarly welcoming people (read: me). i have many, many specific ideas that i will describe in time, but for now just this. wine. and also, me being me. which includes this writing.

i am going to write about it. i am going to write about starting a business, when you have no fucking idea how to start a business. about learning about wine, when the only thing you really know is how to differentiate between colors. and i am going to make my drawings part of the business too. whether they are coasters or menus or bathroom signs or all or none of the above, they will be there. because these two things, the writing and the drawing, are important to me. they are me. and i've been looking for a way to channel them and i think this really might just be the place to start. i think that i can pour a little wine and write some words and draw some pictures and it will be really way harder than i ever could have imagined, but it will be worth it, because it will be mine.

so this is my mission statement:

my mission is to create a wine bar that's not about wine. my mission is to create a wine bar that's about community and comfort and creativity and ease and a total absence of pretension. people gather around alcohol. people like alcohol. and (in the utmost responsible way) i want to use it as the place from which i can be a part of this very accessible, awesome, evolving city. i want to fill an empty spot i found and make it a vehicle for whatever else comes up. i want to make a lot of space for the creativity i've been craving so much.

okay, that's not a mission statement.

which brings me to, one more time: i have no idea what i'm doing. i don't even know what a mission statement is. i feel EVERYTHING. i feel guilty and lost and terrified and excited and weird. i feel confident and then like a total moron. i cried like fifteen times today. i feel insane.

i know you have questions too. i feel pretty confident that, if you made it this far, you might think i'm an idiot or that i've lost my mind. but i also think this is why it's important for me. i will do this not because you think it's right, but because i think it's awesome. i will override my default to gain approval and just say, this is what i'm doing.

ladies and gentlemen, i'm opening a wine bar.

to beth, on her 32nd birthday.

i reread my own words from last week, my own refrain, echoing in my head:

it's okay to love yourself.

i assured myself, again and again, that it was true.

yes, it is okay to love yourself. it's necessary even. i was sure of it.

until this tricky question finally arose, once the wonder of this tragically new notion had worn off: what does that mean?

what on earth does it mean to love yourself?

a lot of cliché answers came up at first. things like: taking time for yourself, allowing space for relaxing, nourishing yourself, appreciating your own value and accomplishments. the things that kept coming up for me were all of utmost importance, but they were all things i've been doing. they were the symptom management tools, the external manifestations of a person, who ostensibly loves themselves. but that wasn't enough for me. i wanted to get at the root of it.

what is at the root of self love?

i asked myself again and again.

i read some poems. they always hold truths for me. i read some pema chödrön, looking for the same. i asked some of my friends. they had similar ideas to my own initial musings. all of these things held small kernels of it for me, but none of them really resonated.

but then, in one short email from a parent at school, it finally made sense to me.

the parent was hoping i'd be her daughter's teacher next year, because i was thinking of moving from my magical, ever-shifting puzzle of a teaching job to a regular classroom next year. after much deliberation, i decided to stay and keep on puzzling. she asked, in passing the other day, whether i'd be moving, and when i told her i wasn't, she was pretty heartbroken.

we exchanged some emails later in the day. she wrote some very kind things about why she hoped i'd be her daughter's teacher. i wrote back, as usual, too many words, some of which were the reasons i love her daughter. specific reasons. not broad generalizations. specifics.

and when she wrote back, again, i finally understood what it is at the root of all love, for yourself and for others, alike. she wrote:

You've broken my heart all over again. Having a teacher really be able to see your child is a gift.

she wanted to know her daughter was seen. that was it.

she didn't want the best dramatic play center or the best art projects or the most rapid acquisition of the ABC's. she just wanted her daughter to be seen for exactly who she was. and i saw her.

i realized this has always been true. this is how i have always consciously sought to communicate to parents that i love and care for their children. i make a point to acknowledge some small positive part of the child's day, each time the parent picks them up. so they know. i saw them. i see them.

i know what makes them laugh. i know how they act when they're tired. i know what and who pushes their buttons. i know what scares them. i know when they're ready to try new things, to be pushed. i know what motivates them, what their default is, what they're working on, where they're testing the waters. i know what they love. i know how they move, what they like to eat, how they laugh, how long they can go. i see them.

and that resonates in people. i cannot count the number of times i have said or done something simple that shows that i see them and a parent has said, thank you for loving my child.

so i got this far and it felt revelatory.

and then, in the same day, my brother's amazing girlfriend emailed me. she had made it through my long words from the other week and kindly offered some of her own thoughts on the process of learning to love oneself. she mentioned many times the idea of "understanding who you are," which felt the same as that same idea of being seen. it is simple observation of what is.

but then something else kept emerging too. she said she didn't have one simple magical thing to say. and yet she did. it was this word, again and again.

acceptance.

it's a word that gets tossed around a lot, but when i really think about it, it's fucking huge. acceptance is defined, loosely, as receiving something offered. it is taking what is given. it is not asking for something else.

so if step one is seeing, step two is accepting.

i thought about the babies some more. i thought about how i accept them.

i mean, if we're being real, they definitely make me insane plenty of the time. after so many hours of tiny people with loud voices, saying your name over and over and over and over and needing everything and crying and biting each other and wielding sticks as weapons of mass destruction some days i'm pretty over it. but i never blame them. i can get irritated, but then i remind myself, the four year old is being four.

i do not blame them for who they are. i do not ask them to be different. i ask them to treat others with kindness and respect. i ask them to push themselves. i ask them to find the edges of their comfort zone. i ask them to cultivate empathy and awareness. but i also acknowledge them right where they are and simply ask that they find a healthy way to express that space.

if that is not love, i cannot imagine what is.

it seems so easy when they're tiny.

it is so easy for me to say, i see you and i accept you. to give them the space and grace to just be. to acknowledge that they're growing and growing can be hard. it is so easy for me to love what is clearly doing the best they can with exactly what they have.

and yet i refuse to do it for myself.

i have found what, for me, is at the root of self love. it is understanding and accepting who i am. it is not fighting what is at my core. it is giving myself space to not even be sure what that is. it is not always waiting for something about me to change. it is the certainty that where i am right now is totally fine.

i've eaten like shit the past three weeks. i was stressed and working long days and endlessly emotional. i crammed myself full of all the food i could see. i gained five pounds in less than a month. i got my hair colored and it turned out yellow. too much iron in the blood. i cried about it. my house is a mess. there are beer cans on my front lawn in a vague circle that frames the baby pool that laid outside with four adult bodies crammed inside yesterday afternoon. i am vaguely hungover. i slept like shit and i am exhausted.

i also got some really wonderful affirmations from people i respect in the last few days. i got an email telling me my job from 10 years ago still owes me $300 in wages. my loving friends are throwing me a not-so-surprise surprise birthday dinner tonight. i have the best boyfriend and i am immensely loved.

it is all of these things and none of them being expressly good or bad. it is simply where i am. loving myself means looking at it all and not insisting that if things, if i, were even just slightly different then i would be better/ more valuable/ happier. loving myself is letting myself be uncomfortable with how uncomfortable that presently feels.

loving myself means treating myself like i would treat a child. with humor and ease and joy and acceptance. it is saying, beth is being beth. and letting it be.

to beth on her 32nd birthday, today you have reached the peak. you are at the top, because you are as high as you could go today. you are doing the best you can.

and that is enough.

it's okay to love yourself.

i can't write anymore.

i can't write anymore.

seven times last year, i committed words to the page. SEVEN. once every 52 days, on average.

i used to write basically every day.

now, i get too overwhelmed by all that i want to say, by the length of the path i know it will take to get there and i stop before i even get part of the way through.

i can't read your posts, people say. the words are too thick. there's too much. we live in a world of flickers, of imperceptible flashes of information. images and colors, second long gifs looping back on repeat, blurbs, moments, fractions of moments. that's all people want. we want what can be made instantaneously, consumed in a moment, and disposed of without perceptible residue. we want ephemeral and intangible. immediate and impermanent. we want bite-size and we want it all to taste and feel amazing.

i am guilty of it too. i can't even think my whole thoughts. i get lost in the wizening pathways of my brain. i don't even care to finish my own thinking. i begin and then i get lost immediately. i divert myself to social media. i hit refresh repeatedly. nothing comes of it. it doesn't feel good. i just keep clicking and clicking. i am trying to tap away my anxiety, put my finger over the sadness and smother it with a series of insistent, tiny clacks. if i push this one more time, perhaps i will finally suffocate it all.

it doesn't work. the stories are all still there, piling up, unfinished. filled with too many words, but still never enough to tell a whole story.

the stories i begin are about my upcoming birthday, the final arrival of my self-asserted peak. the stories are about good food and exercise and the way i've made good food and exercise as unhealthy as the absence of those exact things. the stories are about nic's absence and my floundering. they're about my anxiety to do anything and my inability to let myself do nothing. they're about the endlessness with which i clean, organize, wipe down, straighten, check my phone, clench my teeth, adopt any way to manifest my anxiety that perpetuates its existence instead of challenging it. they're about how i hide, how i create reasons to say no, how i just want to be alone. they're about getting in the car, repeatedly, and the immediacy with which i cry. and how, one day, my tears match up with the rhythm of the rain and, for a moment, it feels magical enough for whatever weird, creeping sadness that's within me to at least feel seen.

they're about sadness. they're about me.

they are always, always about me.

i am aware, fleetingly, that this is maybe part of the problem. or the whole problem.

the problem is not any thing to be fixed. the problem is my attitude.

in general terms, i feel that nic helped pull me out of a terribly unhealthy place. he challenged me to be better and i rose to that challenge, slowly, but steadily. two years later, i am a person quite unlike the person i was when i moved here.

i started to write the list of how i am better, different. but i stopped. it doesn't matter. you get it. or you don't. or you don't care and you haven't even read this far, but either way it doesn't matter. it's not about the list, it's about the existence of that flip. i've inverted. i've turned myself inside out and begun to scrape out the filth that's built up inside me.

but now nic is gone a great majority of the time. he's flying airplanes out of st. louis, and i must be clear that all my misery is not his fault and i know that. he is absurdly happy and i want nothing else for him or our relationship other than exactly that. in fact, i believe it's essential to the long term well-being of our relationship. because i am understanding my current tumult to be something akin to this experience:

at my yoga studio, a good chunk of the classes have assistants. the assistant walks around from student to student and helps adjust or deepen their poses. they are wordless, walking up behind you to even out and stabilize your hips, lengthen out the sides of your torso, and then tilt their hands ever so slightly to eke your body into just a slightly deeper twist. they don't yank you. they don't push you beyond your ability. they just meet you right where you are and edit it slightly to take you just a little bit deeper, to help you align yourself just a little bit more intentionally. it is magical to feel yourself move beyond the place that felt like farthest you could go with just the smallest bit of assistance.

but a funny thing happens, often. you lean into them. you get used to the hand there. and as they gently release you, you begin to flounder. almost always at this juncture, i fall.

there is no shame in falling in yoga. it's evidence that you are pushing your limits.

but in this instance, i also recognize it as the distance between that new place the assistant showed me and the place i'm used to resting. i can get to the new place, but i only let myself get there with help. and once the help leaves, i tumble.

i believe i am now in the tumble. i don't have nic to help regulate me on the daily. i am, once again, alone with my thoughts and my neuroses and, without nic, everything is magnified. it's all just so much harder on my own.

i feel powerless. i feel weak and ugly. i feel like i have no agency, that i'm at the mercy of the many endless variables at school, that i'll never be able to support myself financially, that i'll never be in a respected position, that i'm awkward and homely, that i'm crunchy and achy.

this is the constant loop in my head. negativity and bullshit. i am fully aware that we find whatever we're looking for. i've headed out on this ugly trajectory and now all i can do is find things that affirm it.

i think the sadness comes from my unwillingness to do it on my own. i want it to be easy. i want the same, immediate satisfaction that we all want from memes and twitter and junk food and tinder/ bumble/ whateverthefuck that gives us some instantaneous ignition. some quick, saturated reminder that we are indeed alive and that alive is full of feeling and meaning.

i'm not sad. i'm just deferring to the only thing i ever knew on my own. i'm reverting to the original pose.

i'm not sad.

i believe people are inherently good. i believe we are trying our best, which sometimes, often, does not look like a lot, but it is. i believe all ugliness just comes from fear. i believe fear can be mended with love. i believe i am protected by the universe. i believe things will work out. i believe, always, i will be okay. i believe i am deeply loved. i believe in caring for myself and others.

i believe i am a little stuck. i believe i will get unstuck.

nic left for st. louis earlier today. he was home for about 60 hours and half of that i was at work. he'll be gone for eight days.

i've been putting him through it. i've been falling apart. i walked in the door from work on friday and cried in his arms. i smeared mascara on his new shirt. i sobbed and when he asked why, i couldn't answer. i feel too much and i feel nothing.

in writing this, i have small moments of clarity. instead of feeling ruled by the ideas, for a moment, i feel in control of my brain. i am making it slow down enough to commit words to paper. in that perspective, i realize how much i am putting my partner through.

i text him,

i apologize, deeply, for being a shit head, and thank you for the fact that you never throw it in my face.

nic never throws it in my face. i have had full on, raging tantrums and the next day, the next moment even, he always assures me that i shouldn't sweat it. he heard me and he understands. i'm his girl.

tonight is no different.

you're silly, he writes.
it's all good.

and then,

that's love.

i cry again. (sheesh). this time, not because i'm so namelessly sad. but because i think this is all i'm looking for, at all, everywhere, in every way. because this time i recognize it.

i am looking for love.

i believe all ugliness just comes from fear. i believe fear can be mended with love.

i just wrote those words. i wasn't setting myself up for anything. they were just part of what's swimming around in my head.

i have felt really, really, really ugly in every way lately. my spirit feels ugly. my heart feels ugly. my face feels ugly. i am deeply terrified that i will not be loved. the person that held me up has gone away and now i'm floundering, wondering if i'll still be loved.

nic loves me. i don't doubt it. i don't rationally doubt it. i often emotionally doubt it, just because i'm prone to insecurity and drama.

but that's not where this fear is coming from.

this fear is coming from the place, in which i've grown so much, in which i've done most of the things i challenged myself to do years ago, and i don't love myself any more than when i started. not even an iota.

i expected external changes to fix what was always an internal problem. i have controlled many of the symptoms but not cured the illness. i keep thinking that if i just organize my home enough or eat clean enough or get fit enough or make enough money or gain enough respect that THEN i will finally feel good, but it's none of those things. it's nothing. it's just me. it's inside me.

shit.

i am days from 32. i am days from the peak i always promised myself, even in jest. i literally just realized this all. it took me over 1700 words to get here, but i'm glad i did it.

i have controlled the symptoms, but i haven't cured the illness.
i have long since been afflicted by some silly belief that i'm useless and ugly.
it's a fear that i'm useless and ugly.
i believe fear can be mended with love.

to beth, on her 32nd birthday, you are worthy of your own love.

it's all good.
you don't have to be perfect. you don't have to not make mistakes. you don't have to make everyone happy. you don't have to always say yes. you don't have to fix everything. you don't have to apologize. you don't have to do anything. you don't have to do any one more thing than you've already done.

it's okay to have some sugar. it's okay to skip a day of exercise. it's okay to leave the mess. it's okay not to know. it's okay to be scared. it's okay to wonder. it's okay to feel wrong. it's okay to love yourself.

it's okay to love yourself.

it's okay to love yourself.

no one else can do it for you. it is your turn to hold yourself up.

stop repenting, stop apologizing, stop justifying, stop asking for more, stop trying to control.

it's okay to love yourself.