Raw

My absolute favorite thing to hear about my writing is that it’s “raw”. Raw: unrefined, honest, crude, invokes emotion. I think there’s no better compliment than that. I feel that far too often people push the idea of perfection when that isn’t realistic. No one wants to talk about the struggles or the ugliness that is unavoidable in life. I choose to acknowledge both the good and the bad, because no one’s life is perfect no matter how hard they might try to portray it that way. I choose to find the beauty in the darkness. I choose to find comfort in shared struggles, because no one is alone. This idea that perfection is possible and anything but is a failure is complete insanity. I choose to share the good, bad, ugly and everything in between because that is life. There’s ups and downs and you can’t have the ups without the downs. I choose to share things that most people don’t want to discuss. I choose to talk about things that make people uncomfortable. I choose to show the broken pieces of myself and the journey I’ve been on to become whole. Life is messy and thinking it isn’t is going to make you miserable. Instead of isolating people with this idea of perfection I choose to embrace the perfect imperfections that make life interesting and share them with whoever is listening, with whoever needs to hear my story, with everyone and anyone because someone out there needs to hear that it’s okay to not be perfect. It’s okay to feel, it’s okay to not be okay, it’s okay to struggle, it’s okay to need to help, it’s all going to be okay even on days it doesn’t feel like it. I promise you, no matter your struggle you are not alone. I am here, out of the darkness, to be your light, to tell you I am not perfect and I don’t aspire to be. I just want to be better than I was yesterday and help as many as I can along the way.