Last night I sat on a couch and said “Can we be real friends?” Real Friends. We were asked to talk about how we were living out our word of the year (I know, life just does that, takes something you thought about for like a second (or in my case about 20 minutes) and brings it up again and again until you have no choice but to say “okay, I hear you, I feel you, I’ll do what you ask…. but I already know it is going to be hard.), how this word was allowing us to release what we needed to, and diving deep where it needed to.

Yeah – real friendship with me is actually that intense.

My new friend then said “Well since we are real friends now, I’ll go there.” She opened her heart and said some real things. We talked about how it was hard, how all the pressure has wrapped us in layers that we didn’t ask for. We said, that when we get the courage to pull back those layers, we eventually get to a place that is too real, too real. We get scared. We put the layers back like we found them, and we keep on living. We keep on moving forward, a little more slumped over and little more cautious. We look over our shoulders more and we lift the weights of life, so we can carry all that we cover up. We became grown ups and brought more with us along the way than we asked for.

My new friend, Amy – she is a soul on the sleeve kind of woman. She pauses before she speaks because she wants to say what she actually wants you to hear. She talks to you from that soul and when she is listening – she is listening. I’ve been meeting with her every month for the past couple of months. We sit together in a circle with other members of our church and we talk about how to lift others up to lead well and how are souls are doing. Despite all that real stuff, we just became real friends yesterday.

I came home and knew I was supposed to return some phone calls, I knew I was supposed to reach out through some emails, I was supposed to study and do my laundry and pray. You know what I did? I went to bed. Right to bed. No stopping along the way. Surprised and not really sure how I made it in to my pajamas – right to bed. I woke up today and I haven’t stopped thinking about all the truth Amy said last night. If we aren’t going to do better, then what are we doing? I am not talking about doing better because I set up some expectations for myself, or because I had some reasonable goals that I didn’t meet, but doing better because what is the point if I don’t?

You know what makes me tired? Life. I am not talking about living in to my whole self life, I am talking about work and commuting and being on-time (and late) to meetings, conference calls and parking. I am waking up everyday and living my life. I am not waking up everyday and loving my life. I am checking the boxes and making it through. The goal is making it back to my bed so I can start over. Why am I doing that? Sounds terrible doesn’t it?

It is really important that you know that my whole life isn’t like that. I love my life. I am grateful and empowered and working on being brave. I am surround by the most amazing people and I feel loved by so many people (some of whom don’t live any where near me). I am truly blessed. Right now, today – I am tired because I am waking up and living my life – the one I created, the one I built and set parameters for, the one that is all about me and what I want. There is little purpose when I am only serving myself. I wasn’t meant to serve myself. I wasn’t made for that. I was made for more.

I am going to stop expecting myself to get up at 4:30 am and drink my coffee with the sun, I love the morning, but that is not going to happen tomorrow – I will be sleeping. I am going to drink my coffee when I get up, well after 4:30am, and it is going to taste the same. I am not going to be disappointed before I leave my bed in the morning. I going to be present and loving in the moment, be grateful in every moment. I am not going to set myself up for self-inflicted failure – I am going to remember that I have a life worth loving.

I am going to love tomorrow.