Corazon grande

I'm in no way ready for my trip, and I pretty much feel like I'm in no way ready for my life. On the other hand, once I step off the plane into the California sunshine, away from the freezing cold and noise and drama of New York, I think I'll be okay. So many people to see and cupcake bakeries to visit, but I cannot add any more stress. I know I want to see a lot of awesome people, but I love them all the more for understanding if I can't. The person I'm really going out to visit, my aunt, left the sweetest message that made my heart swell and almost made me cry. It's been that kind of week and as much as I'm supposed to be a writer, not only have I been dragging on deadlines and not pushing myself to finish things that are within reach, I realized that words are not always the answer. They can say a lot, but they can't say everything. And yet, and yet, they have to try. I have to try.

It's all about big hearts, or, more beautifully, corazones grandes. Perhaps my proudest possession and I think New York and my constant self-imposed criticism makes it easy to forget what it means to have a big heart. Of course it's the riskier proposition. Of course a big heart means a bigger bull's-eye, more ways to get it broken. But at the end of the day, it means the capacity to do and feel things that I wouldn't trade for 100 smaller hearts. I feel so freaking blessed lately and it's weird because stresses that would have normally sent me over the edge I just feel like I can handle, somehow. I feel solid and secure even when I want to or literally do curl up into a ball and cry. So I'm just throwing clothes into my bag and taking a luscious stack of books, like one that came in the mail today called Dork Whore (!) and hoping to get a little lost in the wackiness of my former home state. I sometimes forget that it's really as simple sometimes as knowing people are waiting to welcome you with open arms, people who don't want a thing from you beyond yourself. I say that as I come laden with presents, trying to find ways to be more than me, better than me, extra, added, bonus RKB, because it's still really hard to think that I'm enough, and this week has pushed all my buttons in that regard. I try to steer my mind toward the high road, not the petty one, because that's easy, and doesn't feel right, even if I were to emerge victorious. I'm really grateful for so much that I do have, and I don't mean materialistically at all. Honestly, most of my material possessions are a burden, save for a few treasured items. I look forward to major purging and all I want to have more of is words, thousands and thousands of them until I make a book. Okay, that's a lie, I have posessions I covet and people I covet but it's really things like self-worth and friendship and big hearts that I covet the most.