If you are new here, you may want to start all the way back at the beginning of this blog, but if you have been around for awhile, then all of this will make perfect sense to you, carry on.

All I can say for this post is…buckle up. I am learning I have HUGE emotions. I was made to feel like that is a bad thing over the years, but I’m slowly finding my way back to being SO GRATEFUL that with everything life has thrown at me, I am still capable of feeling at all. With all of our new knowledge, I’ve sometimes wondered if I am possibly autistic, or if our society has gone so cold that anyone with a pulse is labeled as such. Who knows, but I’m just going to embrace whatever it is.

Today holds all the feels for me so I decided to dump them right here while I take a break from writing for my hopeful upcoming album (next year).

Songwriting is a super emotional thing for me and seems to transport me somewhere else, much like a great movie. I have a lot of hurdles when it comes to writing music, but the biggest one is that I always have too many words. Perhaps writing all of this out will help.

This week was a lot. There was so much good, but there was also so much real, and we all know real isn’t usually pretty so, yeah.

I came across a preview video for Kelsea Ballerini’s upcoming album, funny enough, called “Patterns.” How fitting, I thought. This is what I’ve been talking about, and what I’ve been trying to understand for years and years now. Whether I will like this album as much as her last one, who knows, but the idea of it is certainly right on par with my little life journey here.

I think the reason we have the opportunity to get wiser as we get older is because if we are open enough to pay attention, we start noticing people’s patterns. We also, gulp, start to see our own. All of this can only happen with time. Kind of unfortunate, but I didn’t write the rules.

In time, you start knowing, without any doubt, who is actually in your corner, and who would leave you out in the cold as soon as you no longer served a purpose in their life. Whether you want to or not, you can’t help but see people’s truth. All of that stuff can only be hidden for so long, you know?

The trick is, once you start seeing the patterns, you can’t unsee them. So, you are left with the choices of working harder for those you know care about you, and also being brave enough to say goodbye to those who don’t. The latter can feel devastating, no matter how clear you can see you need to do so.

But trust me…be brave.

While I wait for Kelsea’s album, there’s “It Ends With Us.” I, like so many others, fell into Colleen Hoover’s novels while the world felt too surreal to survive. She gave us an escape…or so we thought. My experience was like reading my life in books instead of the usual Taylor Swift songs. And I have a feeling a million others did as well.

So, when I heard they were making a movie from one of her books, I so worried they would mess it up and get it all wrong. I am more than happy to say they did not. I was so worried when the cast was released because Atlas’ character just didn’t seem like what I’d pictured. What was so beautiful about that was that the actor they chose actually made it all the more real and mean all that much more. That whole thing was as good as it gets when it comes to turning a book into a movie. Bravo.

I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone that two of my highlights to that movie were…the scene they chose to play Taylor, and man, having Lewis Capaldi at the end. Both songs are incredible and PERFECTLY placed. Again, bravo! The person who put that Lewis song where they did, deserves a raise. There’s such a long story of why I feel that way, but I’ll not put you through that right now.

That was such a great story to shove out into the wild world. So many layers.

When it comes to patterns, once they get started, they turn into circles. They can be beautiful, or they can be excruciating. We get to have control of ours, but not others’. As hard as it is to correct ours once we realize they exist, it’s impossible to correct someone else’s.

We are left with behavior being much like fashion…the trends always find their way back around. I’m old enough that as I walk around clothing stores, and see my high school clothes suddenly back on the racks, I know this is real. It’s such a wild thing to witness.

So, how do we break our own patterns? How do we stop being collateral damage from being in others’ circles?

Isolation.

Not forever, but you truly have to disconnect from everything for a minute. I think the time required is different for everyone, but you have to be alone with yourself. You have to get yourself to a safe and quiet place before you can start peeling back the layers. There will be fear, there will be grief, there will be some days that feel impossible or like you aren’t making any progress and you just feel stupid. There will be weak moments/days/weeks when life feels so hard that you wonder if it’s even worth it. No one cares anyway, right? So, you could just fall right back into your old pattern and carry on.

But if you can isolate yourself like a caterpillar…the day will come that you will fly.

I wish I could tell you there was a self-help book or Youtube video to speed up the process, but there isn’t. The good news? You don’t even need those things. You need YOU. You need to listen to yourself and figure out what you want out of your life. Once you know what you want, you won’t go in circles with people or circumstances that don’t completely shove you towards your new life.

The secret to it all is finally understanding that you deserve a good life.

~Alisha