Hello, hello.

Good morning! Just gonna jump right in here: Since my last post, some ish has hit the fan. That day and the last week have consisted of some incredibly hard days. It's been a rough week. 
This is the longest I've gone without blogging in quite a bit, and while it wasn't on purpose, I just couldn't bring myself to hop back on here and post a Christmas list or Amazon haul or a weekend update when it felt like the world was on fire around me, you know? I couldn't bring myself to write a pep talk about how gratitude can change our perspective when I just felt like crying. It felt inauthentic. 
I always strive to be authentic around here, and while I'm not going to air all sorts of details that have no business floating around the internet, I want to be real and say hey, I've had a really bad week. Things have sucked. I've been really tired and really sad and really angry and all sorts of emotions over the last week and a half. 
So on the off chance that you've had a hard week, or you've been walking through some tough stuff, you're not alone. That feels good to know sometimes. 
The last twelve days have taught me an immense amount about two big things, and I just wanted to share those. 
First, I've learned this: It does not matter how happy you are striving to be, or how much you practice gratitude, or how hard you are working at seeing the good in everything...sometimes you are going to be sad. And that is okay. 
I talk so much about perspective and gratitude and how life is short so we should be happy. And while I truly believe all of that, there are also going to be times where life happens without your consent, where things get hard no matter how thankful you are, where no matter how much happiness you've been working towards, you're just gonna be sad. And that. is. okay. 
It's okay to be sad. It's okay to just let yourself feel a little bit broken and hurt and overwhelmed. You can't stay there forever, of course, but it's okay to let yourself feel what you're feeling for a little while. You don't have to hop right up and make the best of it every single day. 
This has also taught me an immense amount about friendships and the people you let in your life.  A friend texted me this last week: "I'm not with you, I'm in front of you. I'm gonna catch as much of this for you as I can. I'm going to take whatever hits I can to make sure they don't get to you."
I'm going to make a bold statement, and maybe it's just because of the emotion of the last few days, but I stand by it: If your friends would not immediately jump to be on your side during a crisis, you do not need to be sharing your life with them. 
There's a difference between casual friendship and sharing your life with someone. If you wanna be casual friends with someone who keeps you at an arm's length and avoids your texts for a few days because it's less awkward for them, well, you do you. But the ones who answer their phone when you forget the time difference and accidentally call them at 3:00AM, the ones who are texting you hourly checking in even though you're not texting back, the ones who send you expensive flowers even though they can't afford them...those are the ones who deserve to be sharing your life. 
Choose well. I certainly have. 
Happy Monday. Thanks for caring enough to read my words and notice when they're missing. That means a lot a lot. Now, let's all please have such a good week, okay? Okay.