Dear Mom,

I don’t know where to begin or how to start, so I’ll begin with what is the wake up call for us both: coffee. 

Thank you for allowing me a sip of that Starbucks tan mocha when I was four years old and clamoring for more. Since then, I’ve become as big a fan as you and it bonded us in ways I could never imagine. When I decided to stay and help you open 602, I never thought the train ride would be as impactful as it’s been, and though it was hard for us both when I left, know that it was you who inspired me to go and chase my own dreams, as you were doing.  

Dear Mom, thank you for always being a phone call away. You are my best friend and the one I always call when I’m walking to work or needing to chat, and I always look forward to those good morning texts from you, followed by “coffeetime!” 

Dear Mom, thank you for always being wise and understanding. I overthink a lot and whenever I need advice, cheering up, or assurance that spending $300 on vintage clothing was a mature choice, I call you. Moms know best, and you’ve never let me down!  

Dear Mom, thank you for your generosity and selflessness. You’re the type of person who offers your food when someone else is still hungry at the table, and your care packages are always filled with the types of things that cheer me up.  

Dear Mom, thank you for birthing me! I know I was a big baby, but more than that, you raised me. And I look at all your wonderful qualities and smile because I know that when I grow up, I will be just like you (and Dad too, but your day is coming!). If I can be half as generous, kind, creative, strong, brave, and splendid as you, my life will have been well worth it.  

Dear Mom, thank you for all of your love and support. I sit here in my new apartment and I look around and thank you for helping me get to where I am. I couldn’t have done this move without you and I just want you to know that I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  

One Mother’s Day doesn’t do justice to how much love and admiration I feel for you and all you’ve done, but it does do something and I want you to know that you’ve paved the way for other strong women to follow suit in your creative, pasta filled, kind footsteps.  

Though I am in sunny California on this day, saddened that I had to stand in line at Safeway and witness the flowers purchased for mothers that other lucky folks got to spend their day with, I knew that you were here in spirit. 

And just a phone call away. 

I love you Mom.  

XxElan 

Balance.

You ever have those moments of pure joy? When life seems to contain endless possibilities and you're young and on top of the world, where no one can witness your actual skipping down the road and contagious grinning at nothing in particular?

That was me the other day. I had the day off and I decided to take myself on a little date up to Mount Diablo. Sounded innocent enough. 

I drove up the winding mountain roads, passing the occasional biker, with nothing but the open road ahead of me. When I got to a proper spot, I took the route off the beaten path to the top and was lost to the wilderness. 

Call it the uplifting music playing in my ears, or the Vitamin D soaking into this girl's awaiting skin, but being out there by myself at that moment took me to the highest highs, literally.

I couldn't contain my excitement and joy and man, it flew out of me, the mountain being the only one witness to my happy dance (unless there were other hikers who saw this grooving girl and her manic grinning, in which case, #sorrynotsorry).

I told my mom about it later and she reminded me of the tendency I often fall prey to: feeling deeply.

I've been this way all my life. I don't exactly know what living a balanced life feels like. For years, I admitted that my weakness was sensitivity, being over emotional and feeling to extremes. To this day, it remains so.

As Rupi Kaur so appropriately puts how I often feel,

when I am sad

I don't cry I pour

when I am happy

I don't smile I glow

when I am angry

I don't yell I burn

the good thing about feeling in extremes is

when love I give them wings

but perhaps that isn't

such a good thing cause

they always tend to leave

and you should see me

when my heart is broken

I don't grieve

I shatter

There have been many occasions during this move of mine where I've been confronted by the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows. One day, I'm crying about my future and confessing to my journal my worries over my personal failure and then the next day, I get a job offer and am dancing on top of a mountain all by myself, whole, complete, and belonging completely to myself.

What I'm finding though is that the highs don't cancel out the lows. That as amazing and glorious as those highs feel, they don't eliminate the fact that within minutes, I can go from 100-0 real quick, and that that transition period from high to low or low to high throws me off quite a bit. 

I'm not apologizing for how I feel, or saying that feeling deeply is wrong and should be corrected. I've learned that it's an essential part of who I am and that in times like these when I'm fully aware of my transition into feeling deeply, I need to balance how I feel. 

Not balance the times when I feel really good to the times when I feel really bad, but to find a happy middle. A balance between the two. That way, I don't fall prey to the depth of my emotions to the point that I have trouble coming down or going up. 

It made particular sense to me on this day at Diablo. As I looked around, I saw proof of how important balance is to life, to nature, and how the earth operates to sustain human life. The balance of gravity that allows us to walk, to run, to remain rooted to the ground, and the balance of the breathing in oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. It works together to sustain human life and it reminded me to do the same for myself. 

Oh it is both a blessing and a curse to feel everything so very deeply...