Now go find yourself on purpose, my love.

I remember pulling my little blue honda civic over to the side of that road and ugly cried harder than I had ever before. 
It felt as if everything in my life came crashing down all at once. 
I was heartbroken, my entire family got COVID really bad and I couldn't see them for a month, I felt like my friends didn't like me anymore, I felt so shamed and my anxiety was at all time high making my body weaker than I had ever experienced. 

I drove to my 7am shift that day and tried my very best to hold my smile together. As I walked in, tear stained face and eyes puffy, I drank my iced americano and shut up and sucked it in for hours. 

I was anything but myself last january. I was exhausted of feeling guilty for so many things. Every little thing set me off and i felt lonelier by each passing day. 

There were so many things I have kept to myself that happened that month that to this day i cry over how sad i was. I began drinking in my car like it would make me feel stronger, I was sad and I became this angry person who I swore I'd never become. I was going through the motions and I let it overtake all of me. 

I felt so unlovable and so alone. 

There was a day I remember so clearly and it's something that i think about a lot. 
It must have been weeks into the new year, but it was a cloudy day and I was working at the coffee shop and balancing six undergrad classes trying to graduate. 

I was getting ready to leave work when my manager pulled me to the back office and sat me down. I remember feeling weightless and tired. He looked me in the eyes and asked me, "how are you doing, jess? like really doing be honest." 

as I tried to hold back my tears, I simply said, "i'm holding it together." and I can still hear him tell me the words, "you know the world is falling apart, but the difference between you and the world is you have Christ. and that makes the heartache a little sweeter. don't forget that." 

we talked awhile that day before I left for my shift and he told me to think about what i needed to do to take care of my mental health. 

as I walked out of that office, my co worker came up to me and hugged me. she didn't say a word, she just hugged me and that had to be one of my favorite things. 

It was the first time in awhile I felt seen. I felt as if my work place was more than just a coffee shop I went to every morning, but it was a place where I was surrounded by people who actually cared and noticed that I wasn't myself. 

As I walked out to my car, I broke down. 

The next week was when I decided to leave. It was the moment I knew I had to learn how to heal from anxiety and how to be myself again. 

I went back into work and told my manager that I needed time to find myself again and when I thought he wasn't going to let me take so much time off work, he just said to go do it. 

My last day of work before leaving to nashville, I got my paycheck and my manager and owner prayed over me. I think that was the sweetest thing anybody has done for me. and when they both finished, they both looked me in the eyes and said, "i hope you find yourself, jess. I hope you come back so strong." 

and that next day I got onto that plane and promised myself I wouldn't come back to LA until I was me again.

Dolly Parton says, "find yourself and do it on purpose." and i have always adored that quote because it is so true. 
to find yourself means to dig into the messy parts of your heart, to learn how to love the pockets you've never loved and how to be unapologetic about who you are and who God made you to be. 

and i did that. 

I spent over a month leaning into who I was called to be with no noise and where nobody really knew anything I was going through. I began to find the light and I had to learn how to cope with my anxiety in a way that was new to me. I had to start a journey to health and love myself to the point where nothing nobody said could hurt me anymore and I couldn't hurt my own self with guilt and shame.

I spent every morning in coffee shops around the city, I walked through downtown and let the cool air help me feel again. I had dinner with my best friends every night at their table and we talked about our days at the end of the night. With each passing day, I was healing without even really noticing it. 

I think that was my proudest moment of last year. Picking myself up from the ground and making that promise to myself that I would find the woman I longed to be. 

I remember getting back to LA, going back to work, I was asked, "did your trip do for you what you prayed for?" and i replied back, "it outdid my prayers tenfold." 

I'll never let go of how kind my coworkers and managers were to me back then. They were Jesus to me when i didn't want to even be associated with Jesus. 

and that's how we are a lot of times with God... we ignore him and he still pulls up a chair for us at His table and lets us be until we are ourselves again.

and i want to tell you tonight that the little things matter. The little words you speak over someone or the text you send, the phone call you make, the letter you write.

it matters. 

I'm trying to be kinder this new year. I am trying to be better and a woman who keeps going when she wants to back down. 

Life wasn't magically easier when I hopped off that plane at LAX but it did clear the clouds. It did show me the sun and the goodness of the Lord and how it could only keep getting better, keep healing.

eventually my family got better from being sick and my heartache began to dissipate into the distance and I smiled for real and I laughed like I meant it.

I am so thankful for the trenches God takes us through. John 13:7 says, "you don't know what I am doing; but later you will." 

it's true. 

Trust, my love. Keep trusting because one day you will tell the story of how you fought like hell and how you overcame the things the enemy tried to keep a hold on you. 

This January is nothing like last year and i praise God for how far i've come.

keep believing, my love. now..go find yourself. 

XO. J.

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.