Author: Margi Sang

A New Real Friend.

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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.

One Word for 2015

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I usually am weary about bandwagons. However, I am going to jump on the one concerning a person “word of the year.” A few years ago I stop making resolutions in favor of having a yearly theme. Naturally, my theme last year was to “Be Bolder.” That theme continues on to this year as well. (A little more bolder then before.) As I scrolled through one of my favorite instagram accounts: @kalbarteski, I noticed #wordoftheyear and it really interested me. Turns out this is like a real thing. Like, people are doing this, this word of the year thing. It’s a real hashtag, and people are writing about it, speaking about it, making it real, and its a great idea! So, I jumped on board and a word found me. It was really quite easy. I closed my eyes took a few breaths and then there it was, loud and clear.

I want to be brave. I want to be confident in my gut. I imagine that is where bravery grows, forms, builds a foundation – starts a needle through a piece of fabric to become something strong, sturdy – beautiful. I want to be brave enough to do something about something. I want to be brave enough to challenge the difficult person, the soft spoken person, even the nicest of people. I want to be the kind of brave that makes no apologies and has no regrets. I want to live out my skin brave.

There is so much to do something about, so much love to be given, support to be provided, care to speak out in to people. I want to do all those things fully and bravely. In a way that is filled with both hope and comfort.  I think I can be brave.

What is your word for 2015? Have you spoke it out yet? Told the world you are committing to yourself this year. I just did that. It feels so good to know that I have made this small yet palpable commitment to myself. I have a tendency to love others before I love myself. Even when I know I cannot care for others well if I am not caring for myself. So this year, I am going to continue to love people from that brave place, but I am committing to love myself from there too. I can do it. So can you.

Happy New Year!

writing for full presence

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July 11, 2014 / Write a poem, she says – the kind of poetry that I want to hear. The kind that sits on your shoulders – makes a home there. Words that carve themselves deep in to the page – caverns dancing – dancing that only happens at the corners of mouths, listening. Phrases that make skin obsolete. The only crawling comes from scrawling my finite language into a world with no dimension and no end – Something that makes its way into the veins of someone who tears at me without even knowing. Someone who will never remember who we were, or know that we loved fiercely. Lines that sit on flesh like dust – seeping slowly into lines on palms of soulful musicians, playing in dark corners – reeling you in.

truth train: getting over myself is hard

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I have a dear friend named Jenny. She is so funny – mostly because her comedy is not on purpose – just who she is everyday. She wears her guilt on her sleeve and cannot live in a lie. She is a wonderful person and when she wold need to admit to something she wold make a face and say “okay, truth train…” then share what ever it was that eating at her. Usually, it was something like, “I used all the colored paper and didn’t go get more,” or “I let them use glitter, and told them you’d love it if we made sure to get it in the carpet.”

As a teacher I introduced my students to the Truth Train. I would start class on Mondays with “Truth Train: Who did their homework?” The responses to Truth Train questions were always honest. I don’t know what it is, but people cannot lie on the Truth Train. I think I use more then Jenny does these days. Mostly, it makes me laugh and reminds my heart of the honest and loving people I know.

In that spirit, it is time for my own little Truth Train to come to town.

Truth is this blog scares me! I haven’t even shared the address with anyone! No one I know is reading this – not yet – the goal is that they will … one day, hopefully soon. I am having a hard time letting the truth out from my head, So much for being bolder. I am ridden with fear right now. Fear of things I think about all the time. Something about putting it all out here is overwhelming. It’s scary to know that once it’s here – it’s here. I don’t have something scary to share, nor do I anticipate really deep moments to happen here. Just every day stuff I want to get through. I just want to be intentional about my life and process what that is, what is looks like for me. I am not sure fear is the right word for what I am feeling but it’s a part of it. There is probably some issues of comparison in there too. I am hoping this post helps me get over myself.

I used to want to be a writer, I wanted to write stories and essays about things I’ve learned and things I love. I majored in creative writing and the one time I submitted a piece for publication I made it to the honorable mention listing on the over page of the journal. It was a really proud moment for me. I never submitted anything ever again. I started to think that I had nothing worth reading about. People love to read about heartache and tragedy. I thought I didn’t have any of that to write about. My peers referred to my stories as heartfelt and warm; innocent and fresh; cute. Cute. I went home and cried after that one. I probably didn’t even make it all the way home. I didn’t want to be cute. When I read those stories now, they were – they are cute.

I needed to learn to own myself, my experiences and my heart. I still need to learn how to do that. I think the years since my writing was described as “cute” have provided me with a larger net to grab from. The problem is that I am not going down in to that net. I know now that cute was fine. It was the truth and it wasn’t terrible. That the truth is, sometimes we need cute, we need warm and innocent. I least I do. I sometimes yearn for those softer moments. Talk about not knowing what you have.

It’s almost the more I have learned about myself in the past 10 years has also taught me how to put up walls from myself too. That is where this fear is coming from. This block between now and my bolder self. I am so excited to be my bolder self – the self that is intentionally and authentically me. I am excited for you to know that person too.

So, like I said in the beginning this blog is my own little experiment of living bolder. I am trying. It’s taking me a little longer to get to that deep end then I thought it would.

 

we are not the same

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True. We are different.

I was so taken aback to hear this phrase: “We are not the same.” It hurt me, angered me even. I felt betrayed and confused. Then I realized – we are not the same, and that is fine. Never in my life have I thought, “I want to be the same as the people I love.” I mean, never have I thought this and meant it. I tell my friend Kelly all the time that we are the same person. (Actually, I don’t tell her. I don’t tell her because I don’t need to – she can read my mind. She actually knows what I am thinking before I think it.) We are not actually the same person, we both just happen to be really bad at texting and showing up to social events on time.

I recently received a phone call from a friend (not Kelly) about a time where we had communicated badly and she was expressing her frustrations with me around that. The details of this are not really important. What I learned about myself on the other hand has been freeing – and frustrating.

I actually did want us to be the same. I wanted our friendship to exist in a place that was far removed from reality. Where we would only laugh and cry together in our deep intentional conversations. Where we would feed each others souls in life, work, and Jesus. So when the reality of friendship came upon me I felt unprepared.

The reality is that even with our deep intentional conversations, even with Jesus – we still hurt each other sometimes. I still hurt the people I love. I am still selfish and stubborn. I am still prideful and afraid. No matter how much I love my friend, no matter how often we read our Bibles together, or talk about Jesus or all the other things that make us cry. No matter what – sometimes we still hurt each other. No matter how “time same we can be” we are in fact not the same. That is a beautiful thing. It also doesn’t change anything about our relationships with each other. It makes them just as easy and just as hard.

We are not meant to be the same. We are meant to love each other and care for each other. We are meant to help each other love more like Jesus and grow more in Jesus. Maybe we can only do these things because we are not the same.

Originally, this post was all about this one specific experience that took place, about how it made me feel and what I learned about it. Then I realized that didn’t matter. I mean, what I learned mattered, but the other details were transferrable. What matters is not that we both apologize differently and process differently but that I need to listen more.

After our conversation I wrote down the following things.

“I have had a few hours now to think about this and I have come to the following realization about myself.

  1. I need to process.
  2. I ask too many questions.
  3. I didn’t respond well to the unexpected, but honest feedback
  4. I hate talking on the phone.
  5. I didn’t listen enough before speaking

I think this is okay. Well, I need to work on number two, three and five. My friend really wanted me to just say I am sorry. Just say it. She even said that. I respect that, but I also want her to accept that I can’t. I can’t just say I am sorry with the same passion that she can to “just say it.” I don’t think this diminishes my apology, or my respect for her or our friendship. I just think it is my way. Just like saying sorry quickly is hers.

I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t mention this one other thing: there was a moment after our conversation when I didn’t trust her apology. After I had processed my own needs and wants, I couldn’t help but think that maybe her sorry wasn’t as genuine because she didn’t think about it. I thought, “well, maybe she just says the word to get over the issue.” Then I made myself forget all of it. Why? Well, if I am asking her to acknowledge that I need something very different from her, then I need to do the same. I need to acknowledge and accept that our methods of apology meet our own needs first.”

Ultimately, I knew where I had made some key mistakes in this experience. Mostly, number five. I didn’t listen. I wanted to fix. I wanted to be done and go back to “normal.” By not listening and trying to fix everything, I made it worse. I turned it in to something that needed to become a big thing. If I had just heard her and said “okay, thank you for sharing that with me, what can I do now?”  I think it would have existed in it’s space and we have moved forward. I didn’t use the experience as a space to learn and grow. I wasn’t selfish in this moment and I should have been. By that I mean – this was really an opportunity for me to become a better me. My dear friend was bravely allowing me to learn about myself, be a better me and I didn’t take it. I made it about our friendship and us and what we did. Really, the whole conversation she needed to have with me was about what I needed to do. She approached me after all.

She boldly cared for me enough to help me grow.

routines

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I woke up this morning and the lights were on, my glasses were on, and I was on top of the covers. In case you are wondering, I hadn’t been drinking. This wasn’t the first time this week I’ve woken up in this state. I’ve done this a lot in the past six years. Sometimes it is out of pure exhaustion. Are any of you educators? If you are, I am confident you know what I mean, you’ve done this before – surrounded by papers and expo markers that appeared on your person somehow then somehow made it in to your bed and bathroom, you can relate. Unfortunately, I can also confidently say this is not a side effect of my current occupation. This is just me being ridiculous. Not going to bed, because I don’t have to. Me trying to read two books at the same time, journal, watch The New Girl  and, yes and, be fully present with God. Why am I doing this to myself?  I am currently not on a schedule, I don’t actually have to set an alarm clock and it is really messing me up.  This, it’s a cry for help. One I am also refusing to hear. A sure indication that I need routine. I am living like a 12-year-old girl basking in mid-summer glory.

It’s April. I’m 29-years-old. I don’t have a job.

Ouch. I don’t have a job. You know, it’s really fine as long as I don’t have to think about, especially as long as I don’t have to speak it out in to the world – like a just did. Ugh. It’s the truth though. I have no job. I am also not really looking for one. I promised to allow myself this  8-weeks between leaving my job and starting the last five weeks of  my grad program to do all the things I needed and need to do, to rest and read and start this blog and pack all my things and get rid of most of my things, to do my homework, and move, and truly embark on some serious self-discovery. It is scary.

Turns out I am afraid of myself, time, and relaxing. Or maybe I just don’t know how – maybe that is what scares me. I have been trained to love to be busy. I love to have plans and stay up too late and make a big giant mess. I even (some of you won’t believe this) love to then clean up that big giant mess. As long as I can do it with the music really loud and for hours on end. (who has time for that!) I am the most disorganized perfectionist that ever live. I feel really confident in stating that. You know what, if I am busy, then it is much easier to ignore what I really need. Rest. Stillness. Solitude. Who has time for those things when you are filling your schedule with everything else.

 

—

Part of me loves getting up too early and breathing in that air. You know, the air that just tastes like dew. That cold, crisp air that reminds me of camping in the woods. I am from the desert and camping in the desert does not produce this same morning air taste. In the desert it’s all dirt. I love that too, in a different way. Anyway part of me really loves that air, the air you can only get at like 6:37 in the morning. I don’t really enjoy moments in that space any more. I am either rushing to get to work, or sleeping during the peak hours dew filled lungs. I really love staying up way too late. My brain is on fire at night. I think there are a couple of reasons for this.

  1. At night I finally stop moving around and my thoughts, especially the creative ones, have a second to catch up. They flood me.
  2. I usually accept that after 11:00PM I have nothing left that needs to be done, so I want to do all things that I never make time for.
  3. Everyone else is sleeping.

Nothing on that list aids in allowing me the time to spend with all that crisp dewy oxygen. It’s hard to make a delicious cup of coffee to drink on the porch during the calm morning hours when you are still in bed because you stayed up till four in the morning – for no reason at all. Let’s be clear – I don’t do this all time. I haven’t done this every night, but it has happened more than twice in two weeks. That’s too many. (I am also a sleep advocate).

All that coupled with my self-imposed summer vacation has led me to be completely overwhelmed by the hours of the day. I can’t get anything done. I keep texting and gchatting my friends “How do people work? There is so much to do. How did I ever get anything done when I had a job?” (Clearly procrastination and I are great friends.) A clear problem was brewing.

My solution: Make Lists.

I’ve made a to list of 30 things that I need to do in this time. This list includes things like fix middle drawer, sell table on craigslist, spend more time with God, prep email for member survey, clean out books and sell/give away, figure out what to do with my life, finish reading “this thing around your neck,” travel, start and finish leadership project, find a therapist, find a place to live for NYC summer, move. Then I made a few other lists, to help me with the bigger list. So far I’ve crossed off 18 things. It is really hard for me to go blindly in to what ever I will end up calling this season of my life. So these lists are like my bumpers so make sure at the very least I make it all the way to the end of the lane, even if I only hit a few pins – I’ll feel pretty good about myself.

The lists are nice and all, and really helpful in terms of focus – but here’s the truth. I’m in a stage of avoidance. My heart hurts and I just want to stay in bed all day. I don’t but on some level I really want to. It’s lonely when everyone you know is where ever they are supposed to be at least 5 days a week, and plugging away at whatever they believe is part of their purpose in life – or at least doing something that might one day just maybe lead them to or allow them to seek that purpose. I am setting alarms so I don’t feel like a bum, and going to the gym to try to lose the thirty pounds I put on in the last two years. Yeah, 3-0. I’m catching up on homework that is months late and not reading enough because I am too busy staying up waaay past my bedtime failing at multi-tasking.

I am laughing at myself right now. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t on some type of schedule. I actually have all the time and I can’t get it together! I keep telling people I am having the time of my life. I am. Really. I am just not doing it well. I have used being busy as an excuse. A reason to not. To not clean my room, and put my clothes away. To not call my friends and family, to not eat well, or exercise. To not take of my self, to not do the things I actually enjoy doing. To not own up to why my heart hurts and why I put on those thirty pounds in the first place. Now, I have the time to breath and do all those things, get some healthy habits and it’s hard. That’s okay. Not one said being your best was easy – so why do I expect it to be? The world is really forcing me to let go of what I think should be happening and move towards making things happen.

So, I have a bed time (no later than 11:00) and a wake up time (no later than 8:00)  and I’m getting myself a schedule – that includes reading and writing and spending time doing the things that help me feel like myself. Turing on the music really loud and dancing is part of my schedule, so is drinking coffee. Basically, I’m going to rule the world by the middle of June.

At least my little part of it.

 

 

 

solicited advice.

/ Margi Sang / Leave a comment

Bold:

  1. showing an ability to take risks; confident and courageous.
  2. having a strong or vivid appearance.

Audacious:

  1. showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks.

 

The word bodacious is a portmanteau that comes from the words bold and audacious. I would never describe myself as bodacious, but I like the idea of being bold, and respectfully audacious. (to be transparent the second definition for the word audacious is showing an impudent lack of respect. I do not want to be this part of the word, although I ask that you forgive me when I inevitably am. I just want to be risky – within reason.) 

I am working on being bold. I want to be bold. I think boldness and courage are linked  and I think they both involve taking risks and having faith. I have faith. I am afraid.

In light of some changes that have taken place in my life (more on that later), I have decided that now is a great time to practice living boldly – within reason. I keep saying that because this is not the start of any sky diving, or solo Pacific Crest Trailing. While I am up for adventure, I am also not going to jump out of a plane any time soon.

This past summer I was listening to a panel of school principals. They were tasked with providing my cohort of wanna-be school leaders with some practical advice for our future roles. There was a lot on leading well, and caring for others, and remembering why you started the endeavor towards leadership in the first place. There was a lot. I honestly don’t remember most of it. Really, I remember one thing. One of the principals, he was wearing a light tan suit, said something that really shook me. It would become the thing that I would go to when my heart would start to race, or when I felt my self getting in the way of myself. It was so simple, yet it shook my whole world.

How ever bold you think you’re being, be bolder.

That was it. That was all I needed to hear. I felt my heart light up in a hot fire of excitement. I was listening. I was ready to do just that – to be bolder. I definitely hadn’t been bold in a long time. I think there may have been a time once before where people may have seen some inklings towards bold in me. Not recently.

This idea of “being bolder” has been on mind every since. I am trying to do just that – to be bolder.

I am failing.

Fear, judgement, self-consciousness and uncertainty have a firm grip on me. I am seeing the edge and dizzy at the thought of getting any closer. I need to jump. I am inching my way closer (part of me hopes some one will just push me already).

All that to say, I am trying to live a bolder life. This is me inching closer.