I hope you stay with me.

I went through my old blog tonight. I went through and I cried, laughed and felt a little uncomfortable. It was something I have put off since last October when I deleted it. Of course it wasn’t forever deleted, but in my head it was erased and I wouldn’t ever read it again. It’s a closed chapter, it’s one that hurts and a feeling that sparks every kind of shame inside of me. I wanted nothing to do with it. 

I created AnotherPorcelainHeart when i was 18. I was so innocent, so new to writing on a platform and so naive to the bigger things of this world. I had no idea what a lasting impact it could eventually have in this world, especially when it followed me for 8 years. 8 years of pouring out my entire being into that site. Over the last year, I have held such a shame over my writing and over my love. I have ran so far away from things that are deep and honest, raw and real. And most of it lied in the single fact that I believed I wasn’t good enough to write. I believed this lie that I wasn’t reaching people anymore like I used to - It wasn’t holy like it once was. It was just tainted. The other part of it was because someone I fell in love with, became someone who left and I believed it was because of what I had written, I believed it was my words.

Words have always held a sacred space for me. It was what got me through my journey through scoliosis when i was 11, every feeling through anxiety and through depression I dealt with in high school. It was my saving grace when I felt alone, when boys in school were assholes to me and when I got my first boyfriend. Words were there for me though the nights I didn’t want to talk to anyone about anything, but I let out my sadness, anger and some other times, my laughter, through my blog and journals. Words were just the thing that cured anything. 

I’ve always wanted to be a world changer. I wanted to be a woman who spoke life into people because I have always believed this world needs more people who bring love, rather than hate. There are so many things that could be fixed if people were just nicer. 

I promised myself one day I would write a story about how people impacted my life and how those were the people who taught me how to love like Jesus.

And so in 2018, I did that. 

And it took me almost two years to complete it, but I did that.
I think people deserve to be celebrated. That their little kindness was actually big kindness and one that impacted someone - just like I wanted to do. 

I threw out that book at the beginning of 2021 because once again, I felt as if my words weren’t worth much after hurting people in my path.
It didn’t occur to me until October that I held so much worth in my words that if anyone even touched the fingertips of anything I held sacred, I would crash and burn. 

And so I did. I burned everything and I forgot what it was like to feel. 

I didn’t want to feel, therefore I didn’t want to write. Writing led to feelings and feelings led me to vulnerability and I was terrified. I was scared and I felt so alone. 

Tonight, I felt so anxious. More than I have in a long time. And while I was trying to pin point where the anxiousness was stemming from, I knew.
In this last week I’ve been asked multiple times how my writing has been and I have cried every time someone has brought it up. Because to be honest, its taken me a long time to heal from guilt and from stones thrown at my own words. I haven’t felt safe in it again like I used to feel.
It used to be a home, a safe spot for me to process everything and i’m trying to get there again. 

But just like old friends take time to rekindle a friendship, so does you and your craft. 

And I have to remember that. 

I am not who I was when I created that blog, I have changed and a lot of things have drastically rearranged itself in my lens. The way I see the world is very different than who I was at 20, the way I believe in God is different than the way I believed at 23 and the way I love people is so different than the way I loved at 18. I don't have the same following like I used to and not as many people will read much of what new things I write or my new site. I may never have the same viewers because this website is different than the old. It's who I am at 27 and who I will be in the rest of my 20's.

This year, I got honest with myself but I also ran from the one part of me that holds so much of who I am - a writer. I haven’t called myself that all year because I was so disgusted with that girl, but I am ready to step in again and truly try to find that girl in me.

I want this website to be one of honesty and this is my honest story. This is the shame I have been carrying with me, and it’s going to take a little more time to call this website a home but I am okay with that.

I want people to read the things I post on here and feel as if they are seen, like I used to do. I want people to feel understood, heard and wanted. I want to be a woman who changes the world with her love again. I am tired of playing small, I am so tired of running away from love and I am so exhausted of trying to fill my days with ignoring deepness. I want to feel things deeper again and wholehearted.

Tonight when i read my old blog, it was so raw. I was so real and authentic and I miss her so much. So let’s try again, will you stay? I hope you do. 

XO. J. 

HEY, YOU NEED PEOPLE.

I got comfortable. That's what it all boils down to. 

I became way too okay with being alone for long periods of time and keeping it to myself. I became alright with saying 'no' every time I was asked to go out, and my anxiety rose to the scene whenever someone asked me something personal. Like I was going to be ripped to shreds if what my life looked like, if anything I felt like was something other than happy, joyful, and better off - healed. 

I think it all began last December. The crying myself to sleep at night made me numb to authencity. The "having to be okay" with distancing myself from my close friends, not being invited to holiday things and bottling up my feelings, covering it up with no expression - none. 

I began to wonder if I was just done being here in California. I began to wonder if I was meant to find myself somewhere else. 

I grew a mentality that I didn't need people. I didn't need friends, I didn't need God. 
But I have never been so wrong in my life. 

Throughout 2021, I spent a lot of my time away from people I was once close to. Not that I completely abandoned myself, but I became aware of situations and removed myself from anything that felt, "close". Until one day, it was so normal for me. It was normal for me to explore the world alone, to shop and eat alone and to spend my nights just me and my guitar, not talking to a single person for days. 

I can't say I was depressed, I was just doing life. I was just going through the motions, not a high nor a low. I learned a lot about myself this year and I am so thankful for a year of learning and leaning and loving who God created me to be. Don't get me wrong, there isn't anything bad with spending time by yourself - in fact, I like it a lot. I think most people go through life 100% fine like that. 

But for someone who all my life has been someone who is deep and gets personal, I didn't think it would catch up to me. 

Recently, I have been feeling the weight of it. Maybe its the colder weather or the fact that for once in my life I am not in a relationship or meeting up with random guys at the bar. Maybe it's the fact that I don't hear from many friends anymore or go out like I used to. Maybe it's all the months catching up to me that makes me feel as if i'm just used to it all. 

Yesterday was the first time I cried about it. I woke up, drank my coffee, put on my clothes and the thought of everyone in the house gone and having no set plans for the first weekend in awhile, made me feel as if maybe I've been living afraid all year long. 

And I have. 

I've been so damn afraid of being close to people. I've ran away from deepness, from vulnerability and from everything that sinks deeper than surface level conversations. 

Never in my life have I been someone who escapes the hard stuff... until 2021. 

I never understood when people would tell me they want to keep things private, they don't like to tell people things until this past year. It wasn't until I found myself in a place where my only saving grace was to keep everything to myself and keep it away from anyone who can judge me. 

You know, when fear enters your body, you have two decisions - fight or flight. You can run from your fear OR you can OUT run fear and fight that shit. 

I thought this year I found all that was meant to be fought. and for the majority of all the baggage I needed to uncover, I did fight it. But what I have been recently finding out is that I forgot to get over the damn fear of opening my heart once more. 

It's hard to relearn trust, it's tough to relearn love. 

and I've wanted nothing to do with either of those things all year. 
Until this week. 

I forgot what it feels like to be hugged - I think I just want a long hug more than ever. I want to feel the warmth that comes with friendships, lovers, family. But I lost so much of myself hiding from people. 

I've fallen in love with being alone. 
But there is a reason God made Eve for Adam - people can't do life alone. You weren't meant to journey by yourself, you were meant to take the hand of another and conquer the adventures together.

There's an old African proverb that says, "if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far go together." and I never dissected that but the more I re-read it, it's true.

I've gone so fast this year, I patched up all my scars and said a huge fuck you to many things that didn't serve me any good. I go on planes faster than I could blink and I made decisions fast and certain. But I didn't get far because here I am, sitting on my bed on a cold Sunday night realizing that I am back at square one: trying to sew up the parts that hurt because I didn't sit in them. 

It takes a lot for me to call up a friend and tell them I feel lonely. It takes so much debating if I should send a text out and see if someone wants to hang out with me .. because I feel like a burden some days. But If you are anything like me, do yourself a favor and just send the text. make the call. 

It's healthy to spend time alone, you will NEVER get to know who you are if you don't actually learn solitude and aloneness.. but you can't do life completely alone. You just cannot. 

I was wrong. I need people. I really do. So as the new year begins again, I am going to unpack that fear and try again. I am going to try to be intentional and I am going to share my stories because I was wrong, they do matter. I am going to find a balance of being alone and spending time with people. I am going to reflect on certain feelings and I am going to sit in the silence. I am going to fight. But I am going to give this girl in me grace. lots of loving grace. 

I hope you do the same. 

XO, J. 

DREAM BIG. NOW BIGGER. EVEN BIGGER.

When I was in high school I had this dream to become a social worker. I wanted to help someone, in any way I could imagine. I wanted to be upfront with the miracle workers, the strong, the fierce, the loving and the hopeful. The ones who were looked in the eyes of children who had the whole world to live for. I wanted to be a world changer. 

Somewhere along the line, I was told I had too much heart inside of me - too much emotion, too many nights of tears and too much, “people pleaser” to be a woman in a workforce that needed to be tough. Tough for herself, tough for little ones, tough to get the job done. 

So when I started college, I did something else. I pushed that dream down the drain and went all in for another - American Sign Language. I dedicated myself to become an interpreter and help the hearing impaired. I dedicated four years to the culture and it was filled with so much beauty. I became fluent in the world of the hard of hearing and the language. It was one of the coolest seasons I was placed into. 

But I still longed for something else - that something that I really wanted to do. 

So somewhere between spending four years of getting a degree in ASL and praying God would align my heart with what it was made for - wherever that looked in His plans, I stood in Atlanta inside of an arena while Oceans played by Hillsong and knew it was time for me to fight for what my heart really desired. 

In 2018 i took a year off of school to decide what I was going to do. It was hard to lay down my pride of feeling as if I was too old to decide a different path, feelings like i wasted time and wanting my life to start already. But let me tell you this, God always knows. I know first hand how hard it is to just lay down your life for the purpose of the plans of Christ. I wrestled with it, I worried if I was making the right decision and I was more terrified than I showed. 

In the Fall of 2019, I began my journey to do what I always dreamt of - becoming a social worker. I dedicated myself to 20units a semester, taking classes after working a full work day and trying my best to make myself proud and find inspiration all over again. 

For two years I learned so much about sociology - culture, demographics, people and why we as humans do what we do and where we learn it all from. I had so much fun, grit and devotion to those classes and in the end, I found out this is exactly where God wanted me to be. 

After you graduate, things get a little weird. It almost feels like you’re a little fish in a big fish’s sea. Trying to find your place where so many opportunities are amidst, but also one where you feel as if every job is taken by someone more qualified. Most days I found myself discouraged by filling out more applications I could count and getting no response back. Until one day, i did. 

It was the last place I actually decided to apply to: a school district. 

But here I was, two interviews later and a phone call saying I got the job.

You don’t get your dream job right after college, but if you do I am just going to say you are one of the luckiest ones. But I do know and I am a firm believer that God always places you in the most perfect spot. I’ve encountered this time and time again and each time I look back and realize God was right on time.

So here I am: in my very first step to my dream. I signed a contract to a job that entitles me to be a one on one physical and behavioral specialist. Helping children thirteen and under who need a little extra TLC. 

Here, two weeks in, I love it. It is exactly where I need to be. Working one on one with little ones to help them see the world a little kinder, lighter and shinier. 

As I plant my roots here, I am learning. I am learning so much about the work force I so badly wanted to be a part of. Every day I work closely with case workers, physical and speech therapists, as well as nurses. Together, we get to change a baby’s world and I love being a part of that journey. 

I can’t wait to become a caseworker, then a social worker. But first, this is where God has me and I am so thankful he chose me. 

I’ve learned a lot about myself in the last two years. I have learned you can be emotional, yet strong minded. You can have empathy, but portray a stern outlook. You can do hard things and feel all the emotions.

Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." and I strongly believe in those words and always have. That little feeling inside of your chest that doesn't go away? you know, those things you pray for, about, the things that never leave your mind that you want out of life.. those things, God sees. He sees them, hears them and knows them. I don't think it is an accident and I sure as heck don't believe in a God who ignores your dreams.

So with that being said, whatever it is that you have a dream of, you, my dear, are qualified for the job. You are qualified to do the work that is necessary to change the world. You are a miracle worker, whatever it is you want to do, believe it. Believe in it with all your heart and you can do it.

Someone once told me this quote and for years it sat on my desk. I stared at it whenever I woke up in the morning and it motivated me to do my best in all I do and want. It read, “If you can wake up every morning loving what you do, help and inspire others around you to be better than they were yesterday then you know you are doing something right in business and in life.” 

That quote no longer sits on my desk, but I still think about it from time to time and I smile. Because, that is exactly what I get to do: inspire. 

I am so excited for the future and I know where I want to be in the next few years. I see in when I close my eyes and when I bow my head to pray. God, thy will be done.

always, always, always.

XO, J.

SEAT 23A.

 I don’t listen to Taylor Swift anymore. 

I don’t believe in her like I used to. 

I stopped staring at the sunsets on my evening drives because I thought magical moments happened in golden hour but today, I’m not sure magic is fully found there anymore. 

Lately I've been thinking about that girl in me who once wore her heart on her sleeve and how carefree she was. I wish I was still her; but I am not. Although I don't want you to get this idea that I am a coldhearted fool, either; things have just changed inside of me. In the last year, I have fought an internal battle that has taken me months to hand over back to Jesus. It's been a year of ignoring people closest to me, hating God and trying to rid a version of me I didn't want to look at anymore. I have seemingly chosen to see life in a different light nowadays. A life that isn’t made up of hopeless romantic scenarios, glitter and gold.

Today is October 15th. Almost one year to the date and the time everything began to shatter. I hope you stay with me as I tell you my story of the last twelve months. A story I have buried, but one that is ready to see the light and one I am finally ready to burn up in flames. Flames of healing, restoring and redemption.

He said I was the one. And I swore I felt it, too. Every bone in my body thought it. I prayed for it and I truly believed God was speaking in those months. He stole not only my heart, but my body and soul. Everything that I had really prayed for felt suddenly stripped away from me when I woke up that October morning, blinded by everything I fell for. 

I'll always resent October 18th. I knew stepping onto that plane back to LA I was about to experience heartbreak on a brand new level. I can still feel that business man judging me sitting two seats down from me at 23C on that Delta flight as I hysterically sobbed black mascara tears that six hour ride through the night sky.

Six hours of contemplating why I wasn’t enough: good enough to be seen with him and beautiful enough to call me his for once. that was all I wanted.

That day drew a line in the sand. I didn't think it was even possible for me to feel so broken by a person, which now looking back was my first mistake. My mindset in life changed that day and I questioned God to the point of believing if He kept his promises like my little girl self had always thought. But that day taught me the definition of what it really takes to fight for joy and I am now ready to tell the story I have buried for a year. A season in which I cried too much, let go of faith more than I should have, but a season that shaped me into this badass woman I am in this new October, a new year.

A thousand times I have sat at the edge of my bed, trying to write but instead I have cried, hands shaking replaying the words he sent through my phone that I just could not get out of my head. 

If I told you how many times it took me to feel enough strength to write, you wouldn't even believe me.

Although my eyes aren’t dry right now, they are brave. As water keeps filling them and tears stroll down my cheek, I am here taking on this mountain that I have been trying to conquer. 

Writing again. 

And it may not be 100% natural to me today, but I believe to the core of my abilities, they will be once again. 

They say time heals every wound, but I don’t necessarily believe in that. Because time has gone by, but I still cry when I remember the words.

But I do believe God heals battle scars and although me and God don’t really talk much anymore, I know He is still on my team. 

October twenty second was a day I wish I could take back. In fact, that entire weekend I don't really remember too much. I resent myself for things I did that day and for the longest time wrapped shame around my neck.

That weekend spiraled into what became my darkest season yet. I carried around with me that tequila bottle like it was going to solve my feelings. I truly thought it was going to fix my broken heart; drowning my every night in it.  I spent so many of my nights shot after shot, thinking it would give me a smile. and it did for awhile.

I erased my website of ten years and wiped it clean because I couldn’t stand this idea of romanticizing everything life brought me knowing someone left my life because of my words. Knowing I was the main cause of love leaving me.

I kept my mouth shut close and I kept people at arm's length.
I stopped believing people and more so, I stopped believing in myself. 

I trusted the world and it's karma factor more and trusted God even less than I ever have in my life. My faith started to wear thin and I believed He was never for me like people kept telling me He was. 

I was mad that I was called words like innocent and dramatic one too many times that I gave away every innocent part of me to anyone who would numb what I didn't want to feel. I stopped talking much so my drama wouldn't break anything else anymore.

It became so easy for me to use liquor to gain back my confidence again and it was so much more fun to hook up with other guys to forget the one I really wanted to see me. The one I really wanted to want me.

I became a new person.

I acted, thought and talked in a new perspective and honestly, I liked her way more. I liked the way she didn’t give a shit about anything and nobody knew the battle inside but the water flowing from the showerhead every night when her energy ran out. I played it brokenhearted until brokenhearted played me. 

I loved the way the drugs and the high made me feel. I never questioned anything during the midnight hours of losing it all. But soon enough it just left me shattered into pieces on my bathroom floor at 1am on a rainy Tuesday night.

I didn't even know who I was anymore. 

Up, down, left and right led me into the same things. I needed to find that girl again so badly I was willing to do anything to save me. I could not let the numbness bleed through my skin any longer. I just couldn't live faithless, broken, altered. It was just so hard to get back up.

But I tried, and I tried...

After much thought, I decided I needed to just leave LA. I needed to be alone and so I decided to pack up my bags and get on that plane.

I knew Nashville was always a place that made me feel whole. There nobody knew much about me and driving down the backroads I knew Jesus was real. Between the pines, I could feel peace and in the city, lights glisten. I needed to feel that.

So in the middle of March, I found myself on that map dot. And there, I wrote songs about him long enough to make me feel as though they were only songs, not my deepest sorrow, regret and anger. I spent time alone to try to escape the ghosts inside my head screaming that I wasn't beautiful, that I was a disappointment and I released those lies and retraced them back to the point I let them rule me, so I can outrun them.

I knew removing myself from my close friends, my home, my work, my life would teach me something about myself and my deepest hurts; how to keep it all to myself and I learned how much that had to be okay. How to be okay with making my life so private nobody asked me anything anymore. Until one day, nobody did.

The months were long, hard and so lonely. But the months grew me into a better woman and someone stronger than I ever was before. 

I learned how to be, simply me. I learned that the ground isn’t that scary and you must sit long enough in that gravel sand to understand the mountaintop isn’t that far away. 

I made that promise to go back to where I cursed his name like crazy. I had to go back to the place that broke me to feel as if I wasn’t that broken girl anymore, and that I was still made for greater things. So there, back in Carolina I drove the backroads and I replayed, “Church in a Chevy” one last time and said goodbye to the sad tears replacing them with happy ones instead. forgiving ones.

I had to ugly cry, scream into the wind, spin around in the fields and put those damn ole’ cowgirl boots on once again with love for myself and my own heart.

I think that I would have always let him come back in that state of mind. And that is what scared me the most. That I would have done anything for him, even when he wouldn’t do it back for me. 

Some days I find myself wishing he knew how bad it fucked me up. 

The nights I slid my back down the bathroom wall and the tears kept streaming down the bridge of my nose and onto my cheek. 

The days I woke up and told myself I was fine that day as I pushed my demons back into their cage.

The days I felt like a broken record and the long months thinking cigarettes, whiskey or the music turned up so loud it could fix and turn me into a new person. 

But you cannot argue with the wind and you cannot make ghosts from the past come alive again.  and how wrong of me to even want that, to even think that would be okay to hurt someone back. I don't live there anymore and I wish I could hug that girl who hurt so bad.

I believe this year alone shaped me for what is to come. I believe the woman looking into my mirror today is not the same as who she ever was before.

You will never get a miracle if you don't learn how to trust a bit, how to love hard. I had to re-learn the simple things of self love and Jesus. how to properly love - not only people, but myself. especially myself. But i'm here to tell you that it begins with trusting. and it doesn't have to be the hardcore type of trust, but even the 1% goes a long way.

It's funny how much can change in twelve months. I used to think change was tainted, but this new change I feel is only the good kind. The kind that is built of something greater, something brighter, something full of life. I am healthier, inside and out. I am whole and the smile I wear is real. I am more confident than I have felt in years and I am learning how to be unafraid of courage, strength and grit in the most subtle ways.

Most days I cannot think too much about the past year or I grow cold again. I can’t listen to the same music, write in the same journals, hang out with the same people too much or my heart grows a bit weary and sad. 

I’m learning how to do life in a different way and I am growing into a woman who is stronger and more fierce than ever before. 

She is strong, brave and wild. 

She is without fear of the future and she gives herself grace for mistakes made. 

She is whole, loved and merciful. 

She is still learning how to forgive herself, but I think she's doing a great job at it. 

In the midst of learning how to deeply heal, this past year, I did some of the best things. I found my independence and my whole heart. I dedicated myself to the process and the real freaking process is hard. It’s nitty- gritty and most days can look really ugly but the best things blossom from the process. 

I spent most days traveling, seeking and learning. I met so many beautiful people in different places and I smiled more than I ever have before. I found laughter within and I held onto it so tightly.

I graduated from college - finally. With a 4.0, too. I did the damn thing and I realized how much I love working with people, studying, focusing and hearing the needs of those in social services and foster homes. I accepted a new job and I started saving to do something really scary - move out of state. 

In my most quiet moments, I desire more.

It’s been hard to pray, the most honest raw prayers aren’t natural.. especially when it’s been a year since talking to God felt good and authentic. But I am learning that God has always remained faithful even when i've been so faithless.

But sitting here, now in this day, I believe He is doing a new thing and I am trying to understand His plan for me. Even if His plans aren’t my own, I am all in.

So, with the many nights, weeks and days i’ve tried writing this piece, here it is for you.
I am going to start fresh, new and be alive again. 

I’ve missed writing - the solitude that comes with it, the peace I feel in it, and the hope I see in the world when my fingertips touch a keypad and I glance at the sunlight out my window as I write on my laptop. 

I am nothing without my art. I am nothing without one of my favorite parts about me - words. poetry. writing.

I’ve missed being close to people, I miss opening my arms to hug someone and know they actually care. I’ve missed the sensation of feeling the Holy Spirit as i raise my arms in church as the worship set begins to play. I’ve missed listening to country music i’ve once felt the most beauty in. I’ve missed the carefree feeling of dancing in the kitchen and laughing. 

I’ve just missed me. I’ve really freaking missed me.

R.M Drake, (who is my favorite poet) writes, “you have to forgive yourself sometimes. Accept your scars for what they are, and forgive the people who’ve hurt you. That’s how you’ll learn how to breathe and move forward. Maybe that’s how you heal from the past.” 

He is right and I love that he is right.

This new blog isn’t for the past, it’s for the new. the brand new.

But I had to re-live the story I dug so deep into the dirt in order to keep telling you a new story. 

This new space is for redemption. And only that. 

So you will find travel, food, hope, journey, thoughts, letters and pictures. 

 
I am beginning again. 

This time with grit and grace.

I am proud of myself for making it this far. 

I am proud of myself for trying this whole blogging thing again even though it hurts like hell. 

I am thankful you stood with me in this, too.  

Thankful you are going to create a new chapter of life with me.  I am so ready.

I can’t wait to tell you what life is like today. I can’t wait to show you the best parts of me, but also the hard, nitty-gritty real life things, too. I can’t wait to undo all the messy and turn it into beauty with you. 

Hello, I’m jess. And you are welcomed in this space with me.

I hope you stay. 

xo.