i think i’m in love – Kate E. McCracken

I fell in love with two people today… and a third, well that one’s been brewing for a while.

Let’s get straight to it, shall we?

I have never watched The Voice, but I saw her tonight at the Purple Party at LA Pride and… the voice, the smile, the shaved head, the tattoos… (swoon). Finally I have a crush on someone ~~besides~~ in addition to Rachel Maddow.

Person #2: Caroline Casey

I heard Caroline for the first time today on another episode of Teaching What We Need to Learn. Brilliant. I don’t know if I have the words to describe how excited I am to know that a person like her exists on this planet. Her willingness to play with language and shape reality in profoundly beautiful ways is just… wow.

Here’s some of the stuff she says in the interview:

“If we’re not having fun, we’re just not serious enough.”

“We can’t do anything by ourselves. We can’t even be who we want to be by ourselves.”

“What’s going down is dominant, what’s coming up is collaboration, and then we just put the standards in place so that we don’t inadvertently serve empire or colonialism in our metaphors, our language or our story.”

“Reacting is hot. The world is already too hot. We want to be agents of cool.”

“I can get on my own high horse of harumphitude. Some of that comes from having been a person who has had a progressive, an activist aspect to my life for many, many years and even decades now. And often I hear about the next great thing and I realized, “Well, that was the next great thing 30 years ago.” But it’s not about having the next great thing thought up or available, but it’s about actually integrating it into the culture.”

“The reason we don’t want to judge someone is that then we’re inviting the least evolved part of them to dance with the least evolve part of us and it’s just never pretty.”

Person #3: me.

It’s true… me. I am in love with me! It’s been in the works for some time, but something happened this week that really confirmed it.

I had to do a presentation at work on Monday called “who i am and why i’m here” and I thought it would be funny (and it was) to do a presentation called “Who I Am. a hairstory.” And tell my story through my ever evolving hairstyles over the years. To do so I needed old photos and I just so happen to have BUCKETS of them in the garage from a moment where I foolishly volunteered to be responsible for the family photos. So after a few days of going through photos of myself and selecting a few for the presentation I started to realize something…

I am beautiful.

even this version of me: beautiful.

…and I always have been.

And not just the pretty kind (although that too), but funny, playful, creative, authentic, loving… and any other qualities you can see about a person through a photo.

…and again… I always have been. This is not a new development.

Maybe this isn’t a shock to you, but it was to me. I was not very fond of myself as a child, and a recent past version of me wasn’t very fond of the child versions either. Only in the last couple of years have I decided to “forgive” myself for who I was before I became what I am now… and only in the last week have I realized that there was nothing to “forgive!” I have no idea how I developed such a negative impression of myself, but damn…

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. This divorce and subsequent lifestyle has brought out the best in me. Little did I know, however, that I would find out that I’ve been my best self all along and I’m just growing more and more every day.

and you know what… you too. You are beautiful too. You are your best self too. You are doing the absolute best you can in the moment, and you will continue to do so.

love this.

(p.s. 38: I don’t know if you’re still reading… but if you are, I haven’t forgotten about you. The only reason you’re not on this list is because my love for you is older than this week. xxxooo)

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