[ashleycusick]

On: Freedom

I have always been preoccupied with freedom. Even when I was a child, I hated the constraints of a school. I used to play pretend in my bedroom that I was in middle school, where I would have a locker to call my own. When I was in high school, I felt that I would feel more free if I could just get to university where I could choose my own schedule and make my own way, so I graduated early. After the newness of university wore off, I felt that if I could just graduate and go traveling, I would be free. If I could just see the world, experience new things, not have a plan for a while, that would be the peak of freedom.

The irony is that when I first moved to France, I found myself virtually stranded on a farm in Normandy, with very little actual freedom to move about my life. And, inevitably, I was still me. So, I was still trapped in the same cage of my habits (namely, romantic habits) that I grew up in.

That’s not to say that each new experience didn’t bring me a new kind of freedom, because it did. France shifted my definition of freedom. England shifted my definition of freedom. I began writing this before virtually the whole world went in to quarantine because of COVID-19, but now that is hugely shifting my (and everyone else around the globe’s) definition of freedom too.

Entering into a serious relationship for the first time in my life at the age of 22 brought me some freedoms as well. It gave me the freedom to actually learn to love myself. It gave me a safe place to explore who I was. It gave me space to accept myself. But, in the end, I didn’t feel I had the freedom to be an individual. And, at 24 years old, living 8000 miles from my home, the pull to that particular freedom was too strong to ignore.

As I turned 25, the most important thing to me was being free. So, I’ve spent the last year of my life actively avoiding romantic partnerships. My definition of freedom didn’t include caring enough about someone to hurt when they weren’t there. Connecting is in my nature, but I found it easier to seek connections that couldn’t last and wouldn’t hurt when they faded. Even my ties to a city, to friends, to an apartment, to a home had to be kept shallow.

I turned 26 four days ago, and I’ve begun to slip. I’ve begun to have feelings for this place. For these people. I’ve dated many a boy casually this past year. But, recently I was lying next to one, and we were discussing the formality (or lack thereof) of our relationship. At the time, I was sure I didn’t want anything serious. He said to me, “Because you want your freedom.” And, yeah, I was terrified of losing myself.

The shift was quick. But, suddenly, I’m realizing that fighting my feelings is a cage I’ve put myself in. Being dishonest with myself about those feelings is a prison of my own making. I guess what I’m saying is, it’s okay for your definition of freedom to change along the way. It’s okay if your path to freedom isn’t linear. It’s okay if it doesn’t look the same as the person next you’s path.

Let’s go back to when I moved to Europe after I graduated university: In France, I found a kind of love even in the harsh Norman winter with a boy in a jumper with a buck’s head on it. It would cause me the biggest heartbreak I’ve ever known three months later. Two days before my 21st birthday, I went to a pub and drank Guinness and kissed a boy I barely knew (for the first time in 7 years), and I never saw him again. Later that year, I would fall for a teacher with floppy blonde hair who would leave me waiting on the train platform for him in Liverpool’s rain.

While that time certainly had things that threatened to cage me in, it was one of the last years that my heart was truly open to being broken. And, having the courage to jump in to things that might hurt, that might envelop me, that might make me feel alive did indeed offer me the freedom I was after.

For a long while, I’ve been operating with a definition of freedom that included not feeling negative emotions and not giving anyone the power to alter my life. I’d been telling myself that admitting to myself, or anyone else, that someone else could hurt me was a weakness. And, that way of life worked for me, for a while. 

But, now, I’m learning that there is perhaps freedom in the letting in. There is freedom in asking people to care for you when you need them to. There is freedom in being sad that you had to let go of something worth having. I am learning that showing up to your feelings – good, bad, ugly – might not be a weakness, as I once thought. It might even be a strength.

For this we can be grateful:

You used to want to crack your ribs so your torso would lie flat //

That hole in the pit of your stomach used to threaten to swallow you entirely //

But now it feels like a fire rising in your throat //

Threatening to spew out of you //

Now you expand your ribs as you remind yourself to breathe deep //

Surely something good must come of all this //

Surely it is better to go down in flames than sink to the bottom of the ocean.

x Ash

[ashleycusick]

On: Resilience

One of the greatest tools I’ve found for coming back to my body over the last year is exercise. Training my body, and pushing it further and further, has taught me a lot about resilience. I am consistently amazed by how, no matter how fatigued I am after a workout, my legs still move when I tell them to. They still carry me upstairs when I need them to. My arms still lift what I need them to.

Now, this resilience is both painful and innate at the same time. There may be discomfort involved, yes, but my muscles still move. My legs physically cannot defy me (barring injury and etc. of course). I may move more slowly for a time, yes, but I still get there. I may have to recover for a time, yes, but I always come back.

And the same has been true of my heart over the years. It has felt broken many times. But, it continues to carry me into the unknown. It continues to be brave. It continues to fall in love, to open up, to forgive, despite all that I’ve put it through – and, sometimes, despite my mind’s deepest urgings not to do those things.

So, perhaps I can get through the things that are scaring me right now too. Surely I have been through worse. And I continue to rise. I cannot physically defy my heart. It is much better than I am. I want to close off. I want to protect myself. I want to play it safe, to stay put. Because I am fatigued. I am weary, sometimes, of feeling. But, my heart continues to will me to move.

So many of the heartbreaks that I’ve put myself through have felt like the end: My first crush in 5th grade, Ryan, who broke up with me after two weeks in the playground over a bag of Doritos. My first boyfriend, when I was 13th, who told me he didn’t like me anymore on a balcony overlooking the basketball courts. The boy who moved away to college and forgot about me. The first boy whose bed I ever spent the night in, who wasn’t over his ex. The boy I fell in love with in France, when we both didn’t know ourselves well enough to love the way one another needed. The first real relationship, which felt like ripping off a band-aid when we were disentangling our lives from each other.

Each time a relationship has failed to be what I wanted it to be, I thought I wouldn’t ever be able to be open to love again. Each time I’ve had a creative block, I’ve thought I’d never create anything meaningful again. Each time I’ve had to leave a country and set up a new home, I’ve thought I could never find people who would support me again. But, I’m still here, being fiercely supported by friends who love me like family. I’m still here, falling for boys with cute smiles who make my heart race. I’m still here, turning my hard emotions into soft poems. I’m still here. And, it’s really because I have no other choice.

I made peace with the fact that I would always be wild and free long ago. I knew that I would never be able to tame my heart, to stop it from running headfirst into that which makes me feel alive (ignoring all the risks), and I wouldn’t want to. But, I am getting stronger. The thing about muscle fatigue is that it causes our bodies to adapt. It teaches our muscles that we need to be able to carry a heavier load, to endure more sustained pressure. And it is the same for our hearts. Each fracture teaches us how to hold more space, softens us more to the hurts of others.

Even when it feels like you can’t go on, or like you’ll never recover from this, notice how you often just do. It might hurt for a while, or you might be tired for a while, or you might move gingerly for some time. But, usually, your legs will still move when you tell them to. Take a look back at just how much they’ve carried you through so far.

How much treachery have we already endured //

How tired have we already been //

How many times did we think we would sink //

Only to find ourselves at the surface again //

How resilience feels like effort and ease all at once //

How we didn’t want to go on //

Only to find ourselves moving forward again.

xx Ash

[ashleycusick]

On: Letting go

You guys know how when I really like a song, I listen to it at least ten times a day for a whole month straight and then probably never again? Well, the song I have on repeat these days is Back to You by Johnnyswim. This is one of the lines: No one told me getting older is just like letting go over and over.

The inevitability of the end of things has been one of the hardest lessons of my adult life. I have never been good at letting things go. I attribute it to how deeply I feel my emotions. I always fell in love quickly, got hurt deeply and held on tightly. I want to be the kind of breezy, carefree person who holds onto things with an open hand. But, I have never been that girl.

I was the girl who went to camp for a week in the summer as an adolescent and came home in tears, always, because I couldn’t believe the people I’d met there weren’t going to be in my life anymore. These people I’d known for a few days, they were my best friends; they changed me; how could I live without them? Everything I’ve ever had to let go of has felt like tearing off a limb.

I’ve also always been the girl who jumps in headfirst. I have never wanted to be anyone other than a person who gives things away freely, lives with abandon, takes a leap. I will almost always try something, even if it opens me up to hurt. I will almost always say how I feel, even if it is uncomfortable. I will almost always choose a night of dancing, even if I have work in the morning.

The combination of these two things is often what leads to my heartache. If you jump into the ocean holding on to an anchor and don’t let go, you’ll sink. If I hold on tightly to something I can’t simply for the virtue of being a person who gives love freely, it will eventually break me.

I’ve been forced into a lot of letting go in my life (sometimes for self-inflicted reasons and sometimes for reasons out of my control). I’ve had to let go of colleges I wanted to go through, relationships I wanted to last forever. I’ve had to let go of entire cities and lives. I’ve had to let go of versions of myself and visions of my future. Being single again (and really for the first time as a woman with ownership over her own body), I’ve had to let go of the boxes I thought I could fit feelings and relationships in.

Have I gotten better at it? No. My heart still literally aches for times and people I cannot get back sometimes. But, I have learned some things, like this: sometimes I disqualify myself from belonging simply to make the letting go, the possible rejection, the inevitable ending a little bit easier. And it interferes with my enjoyment at the time. I am a pro at being sad for things that haven’t even happened yet. Like all of us, as I grew up, I learned how to cope with the loss of things. And, it was easier for me to tell myself that I never fit in at all, rather than face the thought that I might actually have to give up something incredible. It was easier for me to envision that something was never real to being with than to tear myself away from it. As if something ending makes it any less real.

Like all of us, I have to now figure out how to rewrite that story, as it’s no longer serving me. I know now that I am safe, that the connections, mountain tops and moments of bliss I’ve experienced are real. Still, somehow, I can’t stop myself from counting myself out of my own life because I know that it might not look the same a year from now. I know now that I am mine, that I get to choose my worth, that I am deeply loved by so many people around the world. Still, some days, I can’t stop convincing myself that the people in my life don’t actually care about me and have secret meetings with one another where they discuss how I don’t fit into the group.

It’s wild. But, I’m sure a lot of us do this. It’s easier to assume the worst than accept the truth that you really do belong. It’s easier to burn something to the ground yourself than to accept that it might go on without you when you leave.

I was describing how I was doing this disqualifying myself thing to a friend of mine this week. And, she said, “You’re pulling an Ashley.” I’ve got it down pat. It’s my default when things aren’t going exactly as planned, when people aren’t acting the way I expect them to or want them to or when I’m confronted with the mortality of something (or maybe just when Mercury is in retrograde).

I think I’ve got the leaping part down. I’m good at jumping in. And, I know how to sink deep too. I’m working on swimming. I’m working on riding the wave. I’m working on the give and take. I’m working on letting go without leaving claw marks on everything I’ve ever loved.

I’m reminding myself not to forget these things (that I’m reminding you too): You belong. And this is real. So many of the people, experiences, cities that profoundly impacted who I am have left me in one way or another. So many of my relationships aren’t what they used to be or aren’t what I thought they would be. I’m not even who I thought I was going to be. But they’re still real; they’re not worth any less. Don’t count yourself out. You can let go, and you won’t disappear. Trust me.

I do not know which is worse If I leave you // And you cease to exist // Or If I leave you // And you carry on

xx Ash

[ashleycusick]

On: Coming home

Last year, I used to cry to my then-boyfriend, and I would tell him that I didn’t know where my home was anymore. The place I grew up in, the place where my family and so many of my oldest friends live, the place where people know me, is a place where I haven’t lived in for nearly five years now. So, that’s not really my home. And the house that I lived in, the place where my name was on the lease, the place where I went to sleep each night, still felt so foreign to me in so many ways. So, perhaps that wasn’t really my home either.

But, it wasn’t always that way. I always felt that a sense of home was sort of like magic. The first time I traveled to Liverpool from the Midlands of England where I was staying, I went inside the Anglican Cathedral there and looked behind me. Inside the large chamber, there is a pink neon sign scrawled in cursive writing that says, “I felt you and I knew you loved me”. I instantly felt at home. I still can’t go into that cathedral without crying (and without a nice volunteer decan asking me if I’m okay). 

But Liverpool couldn’t be my home forever. I had to go. So, I made my way to Australia first and then New Zealand. In both places I worked, I lived, I made friends. But, I still found myself crying in 2018, two years after leaving England, because I didn’t have a home.

Now, 2019 is drawing to a close and I am flying from Auckland to Cairns, and I feel the magic of home even 30,000 feet in the air – so much so that I had to wake the person next to me, grab my laptop from the overhead compartment and begin writing this. A lot of things have changed since a year ago. I have a new house that I go to sleep in each night. I don’t have that boyfriend anymore. A lot of things about my country of residence still don’t feel familiar to me. And my country of birth somehow feels ever further away from me than it ever has as I watch the political and social scene unfold.

Perhaps it is because Cairns feels familiar to me, a little like Florida: colorful stucco buildings, weird locals and lots of tourists with sunburnt skin (of which I am one this week). But, I think, what I’ve realized about the magic of home is that it lives inside me. Home is coming into your body, which explains why I felt so at home in the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool and why I feel at home when my skin is hot from the sun and I can hear the ocean in the distance and when everyone in my spin class is pedaling to the beat of the music and when I share a bottle of wine with a friend on their couch.

These are all religious experiences for me now as my concept of the divine and of what it means to belong shifts. And they all feel like home to me because they are moments that I choose to be fully in my body. Not critiquing how my body looks or feels but appreciating what it can do. Not worrying about what a relationship means, where it might go, how it might end or what I can get out of a particular person, but loving people and things freely without expectation.

I’m convinced home is a little bit of magic, but there are practical things too. In both Liverpool and now in Auckland for the past seven months, I put active effort into creating my life. I threw myself into work, I invested in friends, I took time for myself and I looked for the little things to be grateful for. And, in every place that I have tried to make a home as a foreigner with a weird accent who bangs on about American college football, I have found a warm embrace on the other side of my fears. And, perhaps I’ve been extremely lucky (I am, and I have), but I have always found people willing to make room for me in their lives. That’s what gives me hope for the future of the world – in every country I’ve been to I’ve found people with wide-open hearts.

So, perhaps you’ve noticed me posting more selfies lately, showing a bit more skin. And it’s because this body is my home. She is all that I have, at the end of the day. She’s the only thing that is truly mine. She’s the one that’s been everywhere with me. Her feelings, her joys, her pains, her ups and downs are not evil nor are they “of the world”. She is lovely. 

I spent so many years despising my body for being too soft, too emotional, too loud, too frantic. I spent so many years begging the Christian God to bring me someone to love that body, to save it. Because if she wasn’t admired by outsiders, she wasn’t worth anything to me. I spent those years writing sad poems about boys. The writing stopped at some point and I thought maybe I didn’t have any more pretty, tragic words left inside me. When I started writing poems again earlier this year, they were about me, about her. 

And, I realized that they were always about me. And, maybe is it easier for me to love this body because it is smaller than it has been in the past, it is stronger, it gets admired more, touched more. It is not lost on me how privileged I am to be able-bodied and mostly healthy and how much it can feel like betrayal when your body doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. But perhaps, there is something to be said about believing in the inherent goodness inside your body. Shifting from believing that our bodies are things to be shunned or hidden away to believing that it is your friend. Perhaps, those things that I wanted from others, that they could never give, they were inside me all along. Perhaps, home was always right here, with her.

So, here I am. This is it. This is my search for home, coming to a head, inside my own body. She was mine all along. And I can’t ever lose her. It is impossible. She is 25 and shares drunken kisses on the sidewalk after two glasses of wine. She takes Sunday drives to the West Coast. She gets messages, just to check in. She cries in the car sometimes and laughs in bed sometimes and she’s okay with both. She makes the wrong choice sometimes, chooses the wrong boy sometimes, gives away too much too soon sometimes. She is wide open and free, though. She is alone sometimes, and she communes sometimes. She can only hope to give more, love more and see more. And it is beautiful.

You search frantically //

Looking around with eyes wide open //

For someone that remembers you //

For something that can tell you who you are now //

Your mother cannot tell you //

Your God cannot tell you //

A man cannot tell you //

But, you already know //

She has been clawing her way to the surface for a long time now //

For years now //

For your whole life //

You broke your skin to push ink into it //

And she began to seep out //

You have been pulled under by the current //

But now //

She is swimming to the surface //

She is cresting over the wave //

You cannot deny it anymore //

She is home.

xx Ash

I owe a lot of this learning to the work of a lot of really amazing people who are teaching me things and giving me permissions that I have been longing for my whole life. Here are a few good places to start:

You are your own – Jamie Lee Finch

Shameless – Nadia Bolz Weber

The Liturgists podcast

[ashleycusick]

On: Nostalgia

Lately, I’ve been listening to some songs I used to have on repeat a few years ago. The music holds such visceral memories for me. I hear Sam Smith’s first album and it instantly takes me back to driving up and down I-10, just to feel the rush as if I was running away – if only for a moment. I hear the songs I listened to while washing dishes in France with the first boy I ever loved, the songs that made him spin around in circles on the hardwood floors of the farmhouse. I’m taken back to a time when I was content with the mundane, a time when I wasn’t frantically seeking adventure – saying yes to anything in the hopes that something will surprise me, a quality I now describe as ‘curious’ to make myself feel better – because I was falling in love for the first time. And the songs bring back that pang in my stomach. I feel it perhaps even more now because I understand that some loves can never be real because they are created in a world that isn’t real either.

Like everything else in my past, I remember falling in love for the first time with a purposefully hazy, French-summer-sun filter. The edges of the photographs I hold in my mind from that time are beginning to fray. A vignette is seeping in from the corners, leaving only the image of a wide, toothy grin, a floppy mop of so-blonde-it’s-almost-white hair and a maroon sweater knitted with the silhouette of a buck’s head. The image I have of myself, though, during that time is becoming clearer. Though, at the time, my sense of self was murky. I felt bad for doing so much searching. I felt like the person I wanted to be was so far away from the person I was. But now, I see my 21-year-old self with clarity. And I miss her.

I find myself, now, almost pining for the life I had when I was nearly 22. Back then, it felt like I was in a corridor where doors were closing around me, one by one. The future was uncertain. I find myself, now, wishing for that kind of uncertainty, the kind that means any door is a possibility. The future was uncertain, but the opportunities were endless and exciting.

I think I’m afraid that I’m too old to feel this way, that all my soul searching should be finished by now, that my sense of identity should be solidified by 25. I am an editor, a writer, but is that all I’ll be? I am a woman, but am I more than that? I am a traveler, but could that badge be taken from me if my passport stamps begin to fade?

Everyone around me certainly seems to know who they are. My Instagram feed is full of people shouting their opinions with the kind of assuredness that suggests they have the world figured out – or, at least they have their own world figured out. My colleagues confidently make choices while I look up with questioning eyes at every turn and can’t stop myself from falling in love with every interesting man I interview. People around me know what they’re good at, what they’re passionate about, what their dreams are. While I seem to only be good at telling the stories of others. Joan Juliet Buck, former editor of Paris Vogue, writes in her memoir, “I had ideas, but I couldn’t bring a single one to life…my medium was in the talent of others.”

Though I feel that I can see the girl I was in 2015 with more clarity now, some days I feel far away from her. I thought growth only happened in a straight line, in a forward direction? In 2015, there were so many things I hated about that girl. I thought she was too much. Too stubborn. Dreamt too big. Ate too much. Felt things too deeply. Gave away her heart too easily. Now I miss her. I miss some of those very hang-ups. And I wonder, what parts of 25-year-old me will I look back on when I’m 30 and wish I could get back?

Some days I feel close to that girl, though. We still have a lot in common now. I’m tackling a new country on my own, like she was. I’m figuring out who I am on my own, like she was. I’m trying my best not to shackle myself to someone or something fleeting for my own validation, like she was.

Learning to pull self-worth from inside yourself, as opposed to seeking it from outside sources (choose your own adventure here: sex, Instagram likes, work promotions…), is kind of like going to the physiotherapist. If you hurt yourself and you see a physio for treatment, they’ll sometimes give you a few stretches to do a few times a day. And you heal slowly over time (But, you’ll never do your stretches because it’s annoying to think about doing them three times a day, every day). In the same way, when your self-esteem is threatened, you must remind yourself of your worth, over and over again. And, slowly, it gets easier to remember.

There are days when I don’t feel that I’ve grown up at all since I was a 20-year-old running off to France for the first time. I still desperately look to male attention for a quick ego boost. I still get too attached too quickly sometimes. I’m still prone to jealousy, prone to seeing what I lack instead of being grateful for what I have. I still forget the present in favor of climbing to the next milestone, always searching for better and more. I’m still on the roller coaster of feeling at once too good and not good enough.

But, then sometimes, I can take a look at who I am today and see that it is a little bit easier to come back to myself. It takes a little bit less time to replace the initial, unkind thoughts with gentler, more assured thoughts. I let go of people with a little less pain. I’m quicker to accept negative feelings and appreciate being alive instead. And, as I look back at that young girl and I see the ways in which I’ve grown a little bit. I’m still prone to overthinking, but less so. I still try to give love away freely, but I put less stock in being loved back. I’m still brave. I still rarely take no for an answer. I still have to remind myself to be grateful for the small things.

Perhaps growth is not a straight line. Perhaps it is little by little. It is one step forward and two steps back. Perhaps power is more about letting go than grabbing on.

Twenty-five has brought me days of contentment, pure and actual happiness, and days of self-doubt and worry. But, I will choose the ups and downs over flat-ness any day. I am my own again. I’m not sure that I’ll ever take rejection well. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to feel my feelings in any way other than fast and deep. But, at least, all the good and the bad and the ugly and the valleys and the peaks are mine. The adventure is mine. The future is mine and the journey – the journey to wholeness, to love, to living life to the full – is mine. I am mine, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.

[ashleycusick]

Things I’d tell my 21-year-old self

NB: When thinking about starting to share my feelings on the internet again, I considered starting fresh. I began this very blog several years ago, right after I finished college and was about to embark on a truly life-changing journey – one that I am most certainly still in the middle of. And, I feel so very different from that girl who left Florida to do missionary work when she was 20-years-old. My life is much more secular now, though still sacred in some ways. I’ve got a Master’s degree and a big-girl job with paid vacation and everything.

But, I decided to keep the old stuff up and simply add new stuff to it, because that part of the journey is just as important as this part is. The girl that wrote those things is the girl who made me who I am today. Over four years later, I’ve learned a ton. And, while a lot of this letter is probably weirdly specific, I hope that some of the lessons I’ve learned can bring comfort to my fellow travelers.

Things I would tell my 21-year-old self now that I am 25

This is it. We made it, kid. This is the year you’ve been waiting for. You made it to 25 years old. The year you couldn’t wait for: when you’re not old but you’re old enough to live your own life like a proper adult. The year you spent every other year wishing for. Is it everything you hoped for? Kind of. You’ve loved, you’ve lost, you’ve traveled, you’ve started a career. Do you still come up with plenty of things to complain about? Heck yes. All in all, you’re doing good, kid. For someone who spent their entire adolescence in a state of perceived disappointment, it turned out that a lot of your dreams came true.

I know telling you these things won’t save you from having to learn lessons the hard way. Oh, how I wish I could save you from some of the heartbreaks you’ll encounter. I wish I could save you from getting lost and having to walk home in Lisbon in the rain at 2am (sorry, Mom). I wish I could save you from going to the train station in Liverpool to meet someone who would never show up. And, I really wish I could save you from having to leave the places and people you fell in love with when you weren’t ready. You’ll learn, though, that some lessons are worth enduring pain to learn.

Sometimes, your life is that part of the movie where things are crumbling, and you can’t see the resolution anywhere. And other times, it is the montage of happy scenes set to bubbly music. And sometimes, you’ve got to wait until the end to see the best part. You won’t be happy all the time (though, 25 has included much less crying so far), but I really still believe that you’ll see your biggest dreams come true. 

You’ve just got to just stop comparing your chapter seven to someone else’s chapter 27. And stop comparing your real life to someone else’s highlight reel (a.k.a. their Instagram feed). You’ve got to learn to accept both where you are now and where you want to be in the future: both are worth loving. 

I know this is a trying time for you. I know your heart has been broken in new ways, ways you never saw coming. You’ll carry your heartbreaks with you, but they will dull over time. I know everything is uncertain right now, but you will learn to live with the uncertainty. Some days you might even embrace it. The freedom you’re feeling now is only a glimpse of what is to come.

Though it doesn’t feel like it now, you will experience what it’s like to be loved back – and you will promptly push it away. Though, I would expect nothing less from you. You’ll still be angry sometimes at all the people who couldn’t love you before, but you will begin to understand them more. You will begin to understand the reasons why people act the way they do. You’ll start to empathize with the ways they fall short. You’ll see where your own actions might have hurt people, and you’ll soften towards those who have hurt you, little by little. And you’ll see where those people are now – mostly stationary – and you’ll thank God that it didn’t work out with them.

You will learn, also slowly, how to love yourself more. Then you’ll forget it all and have to learn it again. You’ll learn that self-love must be relentless and fierce, never giving up, just the way you’d want romantic love to be. Try to be grateful for all the things your body can do, instead of criticizing the things you think it lacks.

This will be the hardest for you to believe, but you will start dating, like, a lot. There will be magic. There will be butterflies and whirlwinds and climbing up to the roof. It will help heal you in ways you were told it never could. It will teach you about what you want, what you need and who you are. You’ll still be chasing adventure at 25, looking for those electric moments. But, you’ll learn that a lot of rooftops look the same and most cities blur in to one another when viewed from the 20th floor. You’ll learn that the magic of the moment depends a lot on who you share it with. So, take a break sometimes from seeking out adventure and seek out love, even if it’s just self-love.

Dating will teach you that it’s not always about you. In fact, it’s usually not about you. You don’t have to take things so personally. Your mother has been trying to tell you this for at least a decade, but you’ll have to figure it out on your own. You’ll learn that most people are not ill-willed, they’re simply wrapped up in their own shit. Not every bad date is because of some perceived failure on your part.

You’ll lose your purity rings under a bunk bed in a hostel dorm. You’ll spend a few minutes looking for them in the dark (because you’re sharing the room with 10 other people and it’s 5am, you can’t turn on the light), but you’ll have to run out to catch a train to Wimbledon. Sometimes, you need to let things go because there’s something better waiting for you when you leave them behind.

I know it’s tough when so many things are so up in the air right now, but mostly slow down and enjoy this time. Your mom has also always been trying to tell you for a decade to live in the moment and, at 25, you’re still working on it. This will be the best time of your short life so far. You’ll kiss a boy while running for a plane at the Dublin airport. You’ll dance an Irish jig while on a pub crawl that you crashed in Edinburgh. You’ll ride on the back of a motorcycle and break into an apartment complex’s swimming pool in Atlanta (again, sorry, Mom). You’ll eat dinner at a table on the sidewalk in Paris with 7 strangers, and when it starts to rain, you’ll simply pick up your table and move it to drier ground. You’ll dance on an empty dancefloor in a nightclub in Rouen and then drive a van with a manual transmission back home and try to sneak into your host family’s house at 7am.

By 25, you’ll start spelling things with erroneous u’s; you’ll start saying “zed” instead of “zee” and your ties to the Oxford comma will get looser. Your Instagram feed will never look the way you want it to. You’ll fall in love: a couple of times. And, despite the pain that is sometimes so bad you don’t think you can bear it, you’ll be better for it. People will stay in your life, and people will leave. You’ll leave too; you’ll leave a lot. But, somehow, you’ll always find a way to be surrounded by love.

At 25, you’ll come to know that the adventure is just beginning. You’ll come to accept that you could never predict what comes next. And you wouldn’t have it any other way. You’ll have hard days and you’ll still cry a lot. You’ll have a hell of a lot left to learn. You’ll be more certain of some things and way less certain of others. You’ll feel different; you will change, but you’ll still be you – and that girl is pretty damn cool so never, ever let go of yourself.

x Ash

[ashleycusick]

On: Making Mistakes

I got a scar once when I was about 14 or 15, on the back of my right hand - oval shaped and pale pink in color. It was probably no more than an inch long. Pretty innocuous, really. I got this scar from accidentally hitting the back of my hand on part of a hot oven while trying to get something out.

I got this scar by accident. So it’s been occurring to me that we sometimes make mistakes, accidentally. I knew that the oven was hot and I knew that a hot oven would burn me. I don’t remember when I learned those lessons. Perhaps my mother warned me when I was small and maybe I took her word for it. Maybe I had to touch it to find out. Probably both. Regardless, I believed at the time that if I touched the oven while it was on, I’d get burned.

I don’t remember anything from that day I accidentally touched the oven other than how much it hurt. I don’t remember what I was cooking (although, let’s be honest, it was probably a pizza). I don’t remember what I was wearing or what the weather was like. But I know that I didn’t set out to burn myself. It was an accident. The only way I would have avoided it would have been to not use the oven at all (or be less clumsy, but that’s beside the point). 

We don’t often set out to make mistakes. Yeah, sometimes we walk in to compromising situations, we make stupid choices, we pull things out of the oven too fast because we think we have a handle on the situation. And sometimes we just collide with some thing, or some one. Sometimes we just graze the hot oven with the back of our hand because we’re not paying attention or the pizza’s about to fall off the plate and we want to save it.

I’m not giving us license to make bad choices on purpose. I’m just commenting on what it is to be human, to be still learning. I’m not saying we shouldn’t take responsibility or our mistakes either. I remember that particular burn from the oven so well because it hurt like hell. And the scar lasted much longer than I expected. 

I’m saying, if you risk using an oven you might burn yourself. Anyone who works in the kitchen a lot if familiar with the type of pain I’m talking about. If no one was willing to risk using an oven, though, no one would have any pizza - and that would be a sad world to live in. A life with risk involves good and bad. It involves a few burns from time to time. It involves some scars maybe. It involves lots of collisions and an ocean of grace. But it’s a life I’d highly recommend. 

I haven’t thought about that scar on the back of my hand in a long while. After it continued to be there year after year, I guess I just expected it to be there forever. But today I looked for it - checking both hands in case I forgot which one it was on - and I couldn’t find it anywhere. 

xAsh 

photo credit: x    

[ashleycusick]

New Year’s Resolution: Bake More Bread

If 2015 has taught me anything, it’s that the slowness is where happiness lies. No matter how many big changes, job promotions, relocations, huge adventures you go on - it all eventually becomes normal again. And what you’re left with is the little things: people who make you laugh, the smell of your favorite perfume, the taste of fresh baked bread. 

For me, 2015 was constantly turning. I lived across three different countries, fulfilled several different roles, and probably spent 35% of the year on some form of public transportation. And I loved it. I love living my life that way. But it causes me to revel in the little routines I have in my life. I take my time brewing my coffee in the morning, putting on my makeup, and kneading the bread dough.

So I want to start baking more bread at home in 2016 because of the slowness of it and because there is a ritual in it. Not to mention it’s cheap, you can avoid all the additives that hide in store-bought bread, and nothing beats the smell of bread baking filling your home.

Here’s my recipe: (Adapted and americanized from this recipe from BBC goodfood.)

500 g/4 cups bread flour (aka strong white flour) 7 g/0.25 oz instant yeast (generally one sachet/packet) 1 tsp salt 300-350 ml/1-1.5 cups lukewarm water Pour the flour, yeast, and salt into a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center and add the water. Mix the ingredients together with a wooden spoon or plastic spatula. Add more water if needed. Knead the dough on a floured surface for about 10 minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Coat the bottom of a large bowl with a little oil and place the dough in the bowl to rise. Cover and leave for about 1-1.5 hours (until the dough is doubled in size)

Knead the dough for a few minutes to press out any air bubbles. Mold the dough in to a rugby/football shape and place in a loaf pan. Cover again and leave for 30 more minutes. 

Dust the top of the loaf with a little flour and score with a sharp knife. Place in a pre-heated oven at 430 F/220 C/ fan 200 C/gas 7 for 15 minutes. Lower the temperature of the oven to 375 F/190 C/fan 170 C/gas 5 for another 20-30 minutes. The loaf should sound hallow when tapped on the bottom after being removed from the pan. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Happy baking and happy new year! I hope 2016 is the best one yet.

x Ash

[ashleycusick]

On: Traveling Alone

I travel alone a lot. Not necessarily on purpose but just because my desire to see a place  usually outweighs my desire to have a traveling companion. I’d like to make a case for traveling solo, though. It’s a completely different experience to adventuring with a buddy. You will probably have an existential crisis - and it will be beautiful. You will unravel. You will lose yourself. And then you’ll slowly begin to put yourself back together, truer this time. Then you will unwind again. And so it goes. I used to think I was crazy because I got completely inundated by questions when I set out on my singular journey. I used to think it was a bad thing to not know who you are or how to act. But it makes sense that this would happen.

 When you travel alone you are a.) put in to situations you’ve never been in before and b.) you have to navigate those situations without anyone telling you what they think is right. So of course you’re going to discover different facets of yourself. You’ll figure out exactly what it is you like and enjoy and what things you’ve been doing simply because others told you that you should. You’ll discover just how resilient you really are and just how far your two little feet can take you. You’ll discover a strength that you didn’t even think was possible and you’ll start taking that with you in to even the littler things.

I wouldn’t consider myself the most socially adept person out there. I overthink everything. I’m emotional. I sarcastic to the point of being mean sometimes. I say the wrong thing a lot and I often run away (literally). But, when you travel alone you figure out that people are kinda similar everywhere you go. Everyone wants to relate. Everyone wants to be understood. Everyone thinks they said the wrong thing. When I’m sitting alone at the hostel or the bar desperately wishing someone would just talk to me already, everyone around me is usually wishing the same thing - or if not, they’re open to the idea. Very rarely will you get flat out rejected by someone when attempting to genuinely make friends. Here are some tips I’ve picked up for those of us who aren’t so comfortable talking to strangers:

1. Make eye contact and smile: I struggle with this as my resting face tends to look upset but we must rise above. Don’t stare. But look up from your phone and attempt to connect - sometimes this is all it takes.

2. Open your mouth: People are shy. You are shy. I am shy. We are all afraid of getting rejected. Sometimes I’ll waste an hour in a bar waiting for someone to reach out to me and then it takes three seconds after I open my mouth and speak to someone. Try to connect with someone about a common denominator (how long the line is a the bar, how much you like their shirt, how crappy the weather is outside - this one particularly hits home with British people). Or just literally say “hi.”

3. Ask about them: Most people enjoy talking about themselves. Take a genuine interest in a person, what they do, what makes them happy. I’ve found out some of the most interesting things just by hearing people’s stories. When in doubt, or when there’s a lull in conversation just ask the person about themselves. Ask about their hometown or their music preferences or what they studied or, if they’re local, their favorite things to do in the area.

4. Treat people like friends: This is my best tip and it’s never failed me. I simply treat people like I’ve known them a long time and it immediately dispels any of that awkward new person tension. I joke around with people. I ask about their family. I pretend we’re already friends and then we are (usually). This doesn’t mean divulge super personal information or invite yourself to Christmas dinner - but you know what I mean. Be respectful and strike a balance but generally ignore the new person etiquette and go straight for friends.  

Having someone to share your experiences with is a beautiful thing. But a different kind of beautiful thing happens in you when you keep those things for only yourself. It’s like a little secret only you and the land know about. It’s like this quite strength inside you that says “yeah, I can do this.” Even when I’m in a situation and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing I know that I’ll make it out on the other side. I don’t think I would have that kind of confidence without having to navigate a completely foreign bus system or order coffee in a foreign language or figure out some way to make it to the airport on time. I’ve made my share of mistakes and looked foolish many (many, so many) times but I’ve learned to rely on my instincts and the kindness of strangers and I’ve learned that is more than enough to thrive on.

I think traveling alone is for every one. Maybe you don’t want to go across an ocean by yourself - that’s okay. Go to a town an hour away. Walk the streets by yourself. Use a map; or don’t. Make a plan; or don’t. If you go somewhere and you’re not enjoying it, leave. If you don’t like the menu at a restaurant, pick a different one. Speak to a stranger - the barista behind the bar, the library receptionist, or if you’re feeling really brave, someone next to you at the bar. Find out their story. Get lost and then find your way back home, or don’t. Maybe just stay lost for a while.

All my love

x Ash

As always I’d love to hear from you. E-mail me about a solo adventure you’ve taken!  

[ashleycusick]

September Inspirations + A playlist

Spotify is doing a new thing where they create a playlist for you every Monday with songs they think you will like: what a time to be alive. It’s made finding new music so much easier for me. Although, I have come to have very high expectations for my weekly playlists and it is very hurtful when they let me down. But hey, no body is perfect. Here’s some songs I’ve been listening to lately.

1. Steady - The Staves 2. Out of the Two - Joel Baker 3. It’s Alright - Fractures 4. Bridge Burn - Little Comets 5. Style x Blank Space - Glassworks (a seriously good TSwift mash up) 6. Story of an Immigrant - Civil Twilight 7. Feel - Bombay Bicycle Club (this whole album is worth a listen) 8. Reykjavik - Brolin 9. Tidal Wave - Snowmine 10. Victor - Prinze George 11. Nothin on my Mind - Astronomyy 12. Work Song - Hozier 13. Last Train - Dawn Golden 14. Oceans - Seafret 15. Lose It - Oh Wonder 16. Holland - Novo Amor 17. Worry - Jack Garratt 18. Ocean - Andreas Moe 19. You Remind Me - Andy Shauf 20. Build it Better - Aron Wright

The Sun Also Rises

I just finished reading this book for the second time. The first time I finished it I hated it. Now it is my absolute favorite book. Something in my life experiences this time around helped me relate. Ernest Hemingway wrote this book about his generation - a generation labeled “The Lost Generation” among other things. I think if any generation can relate to being lost it’s mine. It’s a relatively short classic and even if the plot gets lost on you (as it does on me at some points), the style is worth the read. 

Greenery:

I know it’s autumn and it’s supposed to be the season where plants die and lost their green but I’m not ready to let go. Give me plants everywhere. Plants by the window. Plants in the bedroom. Plants in the kitchen. Plants hanging from the ceiling. 

Plants in the bathroom.

Neutral Bedrooms:

I’m shortly moving in to my new room in Liverpool and I’ve been really into neutral, minimal bedrooms lately. Simplistic in their beauty - and cheap because they require few elements. Just looking at these bedrooms makes me feel calmer and more Scandinavian. (Note all the plants.)

Sources: The Sun Also Rises: x Greenery: x/x Bedrooms: x/x/x

[ashleycusick]

Au Revoir France (for now)

On the fourth of July, after a few very British days at Wimbledon I took a train, a taxi, a ferry, and a three hour ride in a mini bus to get back the Béthanie in the Normandy countryside. 

A group of 19 young adults came to Béthanie and we had a week of training. On Friday the 10th of July, a leg of the Tour de France kicked off from our little village of Livarot which usually houses 2000 people but on this day was filled with at least 15000. We set up tables outside the town hall and offered free face painting, crafts, and hair braiding to the kids. We also went down to the local park and played parachute games and football (soccer) with others. It was a day filled with joy.

The next week we separated into two groups both with the same mission - to bless France, to pray for them, to release joy into the cities and villages of France. One team travelled to the university town of Caen and one team (my team) stayed at Béthanie and continued to bless the town of Livarot. We went to the park every day and played with the kids, stumbled over French trying to communicate with them, and prayed for the town. 

After mission was over I headed to Paris for a few days.

7/19: Yesterday in Paris was a dream. I sat on a little sidewalk cafe with colorful chairs and watched Montmartre go by me as an accordion player filled the air with classically Parisian sounds. I saw Paris from above on the Sacre Coeur and listened to a harp player cover Let it Be - and it was. I saw an original Dalí in an unassuming gallery in Montmartre and danced with buskers in the street.

I went out to dinner with six strangers representing five different countries and when it began to pour down rain on us we simply picked up our table, moved it under a covering, and continued our meal. When I woke up this morning I drifted in and out of sleep as light poured in from my open window over the wrought iron balcony and laughter could be heard from the courtyard below along with a mixture of broken English, Spanish, and French - everyone just trying to connect.  For some reason nothing seems to hurt for the moment. There is peace. I feel at peace with who I am (even though I’m still not really sure who that is, I can’t describe her, and she still has a long way to go). I feel at peace with the future (even though the next step is completely terrifying). I feel at peace in my heart (even though it is still broken). 

7/22: I was really nervous to go back to France - and the first few days were hard to adjust to. But it turned in to something amazing. I still find it hard to file everything into my mind. I still find it hard to put in to words what my experiences in France and England were and how I’ve changed and grown. It’s been simultaneously one of the hardest seasons of my life (something I didn’t expect at all) and filled with some of the best days of my life. But coming back has given me a chance for just a little bit of resolution. My mind is now filled with memories of laying on the grass in the sun under the Norman sky and watching fireworks with a newfound and quickly formed family and laughing with tears through arm wrestling competitions and diving into the freezing water of the river La Vie. 

I still remember the gray January mornings and being able to see my breath inside because it was so cold and huddling by the radiator with mugs of green tea. And I still remember losing myself and feeing like I was floating in the ocean with no anchor in sight. There’s so much I could say about my own growth, about mission in Europe, about relationship, about prayer. I want to tell you all about it - I still can’t quite get my head around it all but I’ll do my best to describe it all. 

Tomorrow I head back to Florida for the first time in seven months. If you haven’t yet heard: in September I will be going back to the UK to begin a master’s program in international journalism at Liverpool John Moores University (this is a crazy story - ask me about it later). If you’ll be around Florida - let’s catch up. I will continue to update the blog as I figure out what’s going on in the world and in my head. I look forward to continue sharing with you what I’ve learned - both practically and ideologically.  

Au revoir France (for now), I will miss fresh baked baguettes and pain au chocolats and macaroons, I can’t wait to see you again. 

Seriously, let’s catch up. 

x Ashley 

[ashleycusick]

I Went There: Edinburgh

Contrary to popular American belief, Edinburgh is in Scotland which is NOT England (but it’s still the United Kingdom - read this wikipedia article for further clarification). 

I freaking loved Edinburgh. Which is saying something because it took me three separate trains, one three-hour coach ride, and lots of sitting around train stations to get there. At least I got some good reading done on the journey.

My hostel was right across the street from the castle which boasted this impressive view:

The city is packed with history and arts and culture and you can genuinely hear bagpipes as you walk down the street - just what you’d expect. On Saturday when I arrived there was a wedding going on at the castle so I got to see several men in kilts making their way down the Royal Mile (the street that stretches from the Queen’s palace in Scotland to the castle) - a special treat. 

People in Edinburgh were unbelievably friendly, even if I couldn’t understand them through their Scottish accents. The whole weekend was a whirlwind of new friends, hiking up mountains and hills, Scottish whisky, and tartan print. So I’ll just offer you a series of pictures:

(Arthur’s Seat in Holyrood park - literally straight uphill for miles but with views well worth it)

(An oddly Parthenon-looking monument on Calton Hill)

Things you should definitely do if you’re ever in Edinburgh: + Eat haggis at a pub in Old Town - I had already had the, um, pleasure of experiencing haggis whilst in France and did not feel the need to do it again but if you’re in Scotland you have to at least try it. And soaking in the classic vibes of the pubs in Old Town will make you feel like a proper Scotsman. The Grassmarket area has tons of famous old pubs, any will do. I particularly enjoyed Maggie Dicksons.  + Eat at a hip local eatery in New Town. I went to the Rosehip and it was and superb, but great local restaurants are all over New Town.   + Drink whisky literally anywhere and everywhere.  +Hit up the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art for a change of pace from all the other museums that you’ve been to in Europe that boast super old paintings.  +Take a free walking tour. There are many offered but I went on one offered through New Europe. These are a great [free] way to learn a lot about the history behind Edinburgh. 

(Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art - Reads: Everything is Going to be Alright)

Things not to do if you’re ever in Edinburgh: + Wear plaid. I wore a flannel on the second day I was there and got mistaken for a local three times.

Send me all your questions/comments/concerns.

So much love x Ashley 

[ashleycusick]

Monthly Inspirations: May

I can’t believe it’s May and I’m still wearing two coats out of the house. There has been lot of sunshine though so I’m not complaining. I’m finally learning what seasons are - I’m told this is “Spring.”

Anyway, here are some things I liked this month:

Traveling by Train:

I feel like I’m always on a train these days, and I love it. Trains offer the convenience of not having to drive yourself that flying does but you can bring whatever you want on board. You want to bring you bicycle with you? No problem. Don’t want to leave your dog at home? That’s fine. You’re a normal human who needs more than 3 oz. of liquid at one given time? Bring as much liquid as you want. It’s amazing. Oh, AND, you can genuinely show up a minute before the train leaves and hop on. No lining up for hours and going through metal detectors. You just get a block of uninterrupted time to do whatever you want. Catch up on your reading or your sleep. Listen to your favorite new song on repeat. And someone else gets you to where you want to go. Sure, sometimes you have to deal with a group of rowdy teenagers or drunken bachelorette parties (in the middle of the day) but the pros far outweigh the cons.  I literally feel so powerful when I go to the train station because I feel like I could go anywhere. The world is my oyster. I mean, technically I’m not allowed back into Europe for another month and the UK is an island but the UK is my oyster when I walk into that train station. Sometimes, I don’t even plan where I’m going, I just get on the first train I see (okay, this has only happened once). Plus, you usually get to see idyllic countrysides while you’re sitting on the train including cows and sheep and horses.  I know the U.S. is a big country and all but we are seriously lacking in the train transport department. 

Bunting:

Bunting makes everything better. If you have bad news to tell me - put up some bunting in the room please. I have been living under a bunting rock but now it seems to be everywhere in my life. And I’m not mad about that. Even got some rounded bunting in my room:

In my head bunting was always for birthday parties but whoever decided that we can and should leave it up all the time is a genius. 

Bunting makes everything better.

Deconstructed and/or Slightly Abstract Florals:

(Plus one just plain abstract) I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: watercolors are magical. And I’m just really digging this aesthetic lately.

Is this what emerging into adulthood feels like? You start to like abstract art? 

Spring Cleaning:

I’ve recently rediscovered my love for Pinterest. But my Pinterest account has laid dormant for about three years since freshman year of college. Needless to say I pinned some BAD stuff back in the day. Thank God I didn’t get married when I was 17 because I would not be happy today about the decor choices I would have made based on my wedding board. So I went through and curated my Pinterest boards a little and it made me feel so much better. Like a fresh start. In addition to your Pinterest boards, I would recommend spring cleaning:

+ Your tumblr drafts + Your Facebook friends + Any of your undergarments that have holes in them (this includes socks) + The backseat and/or trunk of your car + Your e-mail junk folder. ESPECIALLY if you’re one of those people that has a number in the thousands next to the mail icon on your iPhone home page. I am stressed out for you.

Vancouver Sleep Clinic:

Gotta give credit to my housemate (host mom?), Gemma, for telling me about this album but it is so good. Good work music. Good running music. Good living music. Check out their website here. Under the “listen” tab they have a cover of Drake’s Hold On that is SICK. 

Love you guys. Hope you’re staying inspired. Share cool stuff with me.

x Ash 

Bunting credit (which is also a DIY tutorial): x Devil Wears Prada gif: x Floral credits: x//x//x//x

[ashleycusick]

Thoughts from April 27th

Monet’s The Japanese Bridge. Painted 20 years after his more recognizable The Water-Lily Pond. In it Monet says he engages with “the instability of a universe that changes constantly under our very eyes.”

Seen at the National Gallery, London.

Here is a text message conversation I had with a friend earlier today:

[Her telling me about her future plans] Me: Eeeee you are so cool Her: Haha Her: Just tryna follow in the Cusick steps ;) Me: Oh God no, don’t do that Her: Already did… Her: Lol (red heart emoji) Me: That just means crying all the time and perpetually having no idea what you’re doing

I just want to dispel any ideas you may have in your head about my European life being glamorous. I’m currently sitting on the floor of my (borrowed) bedroom eating dry salad leaves out of the bag. I mean, don’t get me wrong, every layer of this was my own choice. I wanted to eat salad leaves out of the bag.

I will get to a point eventually, I promise.

So, we all know that I’ve been restless for a long time. When I was 12, I begged my mother to send me to a boarding school in Switzerland. I didn’t just beg. I did the research. I looked up exactly which school I wanted to be sent to and how much it would cost and how I would get there. And I genuinely believed that my mom didn’t love me because she wouldn’t send her adolescent daughter half-way across the world to go to school. When I was 20, I was sitting on the floor of my apartment reading a 600 page guide to traveling Europe on a shoestring budget and planning my escape. I cried in the shower when God told me to stay in Tallahassee for an extra three months.  

You can imagine my disappointment when I got to Europe and discovered what people had been telling me all along - you can’t run from yourself. I’m still doing to the same things I was doing in the states; namely - crying all the time and perpetually having no idea what I’m doing. But I don’t feel restless anymore. So I’m left with a dilemma: in America I had all the practicals worked out - job, family, friends, church. I was comfortable, but it didn’t feel right. In Europe literally none of the practicals seem to be working long-term. But it feels right.

There’s still a lot of time left, though. 9 more weeks in England and 3 more weeks in France are definite. A lot can happen in 12 weeks.

I woke up with “God Bless America” stuck in my head this morning. I told God, “Bless them. I love them. But if this is a sign that I am headed back there then I’m going to fight it every step of the way.”

I want to give up sometimes. When nothing is working and nothing makes sense, I want to give up. I want to walk away and choose something easier. But I can’t. Honestly, I tried to just book a plane ticket home after my internship is over. I couldn’t do it. Something inside me won’t let me give up. I can’t give up on this dream. Not yet. I don’t even know what the dream is but I will knock on every door and if I get to the end and none of them are open at least I will know I gave it everything I had. And, like I said, my soul physically won’t let me do anything else.

Here is(are) my point(s) in telling you all of these thoughts:

I think I’m repeating myself but apparently I need to learn these lessons over and over again so I will write them over and over again and maybe one day I will remember them. Maybe someone just need to hear this today.

It’s okay to not be okay: This is me giving you permission to be not okay. Even for a prolonged period of time. We have got to stop buying this lie that if our lives are not a constant stream of blissful, instagram-worthy moments then we’ve somehow got it wrong. That if we’re 21 and we still haven’t really figured out what we want then we’ve somehow failed. [Refer to the gifset in my last post]

Live life on the edge: Perhaps my incessant complaining on the internet has dissuaded you from wanting to leave your comfort zone. It shouldn’t. Because I wouldn’t trade my life or the experiences of my last few months for anything. I would’t do anything differently. I would not take back any of the tears. An ever-present feeling of my last months and weeks is that you have to take the good with the bad. That is the very definition of leaving your comfort zone. Living life on the edge doesn’t mean moving across an ocean or to a third-world country. It means fighting the urge to be numb. It has become very cool to be nonchalant. And I’m the best at this. But you don’t just get to numb the bad feelings. You live life on the edge by feeling. Feel the rush of trusting people with who you really are. Also feel the sadness of finding out that someone who made you feel safe wasn’t actually all that safe. Risk it anyway. An abundant life doesn’t mean feeling good all the time. It means feeling everything all the time. I will probably never stop crying a lot. I will never stop investing (maybe) too much into the relationships around me - my soul won’t let me. And I will never stop thanking God that he made me this way. Because I’ve felt a lot of pain in my life, but I’m convinced I’ve also felt the greatest of happiness.

Keep fighting: I get really jealous of people when I hear their stories of how circumstances miraculously came together and their dreams came true. Because I’ve been fighting and pushing on doors and I’m tired. Like I said earlier, I’ve been trying to give up. The message keeps coming at me, though, to keep fighting. If I can’t fight for the future anymore, then perhaps it is to push me to fight for the present. I may be tired all around, and I may not have anything concrete to hold on to beyond 12 weeks. But I have 12 weeks. I can fight for those 12 weeks or I can give up and emotionally back out simply because I’m terrified of what the future means. The choice is mine. And the choice to keep fighting is a hard one. But for as many verses in the Bible that say “The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still,” there is a verse that says. “Run the race to win the prize,” and “Run with endurance.” So I will run. And I will fight. And if there’s something that you feel like you need to keep fighting for, this is your sign to keep going. I’m with you.

E-mail me. Text me. Send me love letters.

x Ash

[ashleycusick]

Monthly Inspirations: April

Okay I didn’t even want to do this. Because these are the kinds of things I read on the internet and they make me feel like my life is inadequate. And I don’t want to make people feel inadequate because it’s not a nice feeling. And the biggest thing for me is being real (look for a future post about why being real is so important) and collaging all the things that inspire me and putting it on the internet makes me feel like one of those unattainable cool girls. My life in NOT unattainable and I’m usually trying to act cooler than I am. However, being inspired and not having anything to do with that inspiration sucks. I have no cool loft in a big city to decorate, nor do I have the money for a killer wardrobe or the artistic talent that I wish I did. So the internet is my outlet for now. And we’re all just going to have to deal with it. In summary: I am sharing with you some things that I’ve been into for a little while and I’m doing it mostly for me but also for you to be able to say, “Oh, that’s right up my alley and I had no idea it existed. How cool that I’m aware of it now.” 

Indie Lifestyle Magazines:

These are kind of hard to define but somehow I love them all. Independent magazines take the form of a magazine minus the glossy pages and tacky articles. They tend to boast more meaningful content and look more aesthetically pleasing to my minimalist-loving eye. There’s indie mags about almost any niche topic you could ever want. Favorites of mine include Renegade and Kinfolk

Theres a service called Stack that delivers to you a surprise magazine each month from their collection of indie magazines. Which is super cool.  Pro Tip: if you hang out at really hip cafes they might have some of these types of magazines laying around and then you don’t have to pay the [usually] outrageous price tag.

Peder Balke:

I went to London recently and in the National Gallery they have a temporary exhibit of Peder Balke's works. They were breathtaking. He was a Norwegian painter known for his painting of the Norwegian landscapes.

This was one of my favorites. It’s oil painted on wood so the picture doesn’t do any justice to the textures in the actual painting but it was breathtaking.  Read more about Peder Balke and see more of his work here. 

Blush Pink:

I see this color everywhere (by everywhere I mean covering the walls of H&M) and I’m not mad about it.  We all know that I, like Blair Waldorf, want blush peonies everywhere whenever I get around to having a wedding. But lately I want everything to be blush pink. 

I found a house this color in London:

And i’ve been reblogging a lot of it on tumblr. It’s subtle, it goes with almost anything. It makes me feel like a woodland fairy. MUTED PASTELS FOR THE WIN.

Pretty Floors/Tile Work:

I came across this instagram account which is all about pretty floors and it’s been feeding my soul. The floor at my new host family’s house in Stafford fits right in. Seen here (feat. my new Vans which I got for half off - if you haven’t heard this story yet: ask me - because it’s really exciting):

If only the inside of my brain looked as pretty as these Photoshop collages. Lots of love and, as always, contact me with any questions/comments/concerns. What has been inspiring you lately? 

x Ash 

Indie mags photo credits: x/x Blush pink photo credits: x/x/x/x Tile work photo credits: x/x/x

[ashleycusick]

I'm Tired of Waiting

This is a lesson I’ve been continually learning for a long time. (And I owe it all to the other people in my life teaching me things.)

…So you’ve probably heard me talk about it before. Sorry I’m not sorry. It gets good at the end - I promise.

It all started with this article. Not an article that comes from a Christian perspective, per se, but it has a lesson in it that has deeply impacted my life as a Christian. In it, the author talks about how it took a scary event occurring to make her grateful for what she has. And it’s true, isn’t it? The minute something unfortunate happens we, especially as Christians, are quick to say, “Well it’s not as bad as it could be.” We wait until another group of people gets unjustly killed to thank God for safety and security and our loved ones. Then, she relates this to drinking water. We drink water when we are thirsty but that’s not the point. We are intended - it is healthier - to drink water all throughout the day to avoid thirst. We don’t feel the immediate effects of drinking water. We can’t drink a glass of water and immediately see clearer skin, more energy, less sickness. But the effects of being properly hydrated occur in the long-term. Gradually, you build a healthier life with each new glass of water.

Thirst is a sign of depravation. Our bodies are not designed to be thirsty. The minute you feel thirsty you are already behind. It is the same with our spiritual lives. We get thirsty, we get desperate and we reach for God. And this is okay. It is necessary. But we were not designed to be thirsty. We were designed to walk with God in the cool of the day. And it has occurred to me that the water we are to drink to stay hydrated in our spiritual lives is gratitude. Because gratitude is trust. We won’t feel the immediate effect of gratitude in our lives - especially when it’s difficult to be grateful. In the times when we are quick to forget gratitude, mouthing the words of gratitude will not immediately usher in happiness. But building a life steeped in gratitude will show long-term effects.

It is easy to reach for a glass of water when we are so thirsty we feel like we could die. It takes discipline to drink water when we are not thirsty. It’s easy to reach for water when something is on fire or when you can see the flowers pushing up from the earth. It takes discipline and courage to water the flat ground. So this is what we wait for, thirst or fire or flowering to show gratitude.

But it has come to my attention recently that no one is exempt from waiting. No matter how much you chase after those peaks in your life, all we ever really have is the mundane. You can get maybe a few exhilarating and terrify moments - and even those, for me, are usually covered in tears. But very quickly, the peak becomes the plateau and we are on to waiting for the next thing. We feel as though we have wandered in the desert for long enough - the promised land has to be just around the corner. This was my experience. America was my desert and nothing was ever good enough there. There had to be more than classrooms and term papers or concrete offices and Jeopardy every night at 7:30 sharp. And I have this absolutely crazy mental block about needing adventure and crazy nights and twirling in circles in some proverbial moonlight. Otherwise life is just boring. Europe was supposed to be my promised land.

And yet here I am and I’ve been moaning and complaining about how hard and complicated everything is. I keep getting mad at people here for teaching me lessons that I don’t want to learn but they keep teaching me them anyway. And I’m learning that I am the one that’s doing this. I am the one that thrives off of complicated no matter how many times I’ve prayed for simplicity. I blame the media for making me believe that relationships are not worthwhile if they are easy. (Kidding…kinda) Because, for me, if someone isn’t confessing their love on a bridge in the rain then it’s not real. So I push people, and I make things complicated. I take the most honest, straightforward, real things in my life and I make them difficult in my head. And then I cry because I just want it to be easy. Welcome to my psychological complex, everyone.

In the end it all comes down to gratitude. All of this mess that I have single-handedly imprisoned myself in is because I’m not okay with waiting. I hate waiting. I’m so so good at playing the victim, too, and whining about the fact that I feel like I’ve been waiting for the same things forever - the promised land has to be just around the corner, I’m sure of it. It comes down to gratitude because I have been in the promised land the whole time. I’ve been too busy living in a cave to even notice it. I have been Israel, refusing to walk into the land God has promised me. The husband, the fulfilling career, the world travels and endless adventures - none of these things are inherently bad except for the fact that they have become my promised land. And I could wander in the desert forever waiting for something. There will always be something to wait for. But freedom, unconditional love, beauty - all of these things are already available to me. (Which is all because of Jesus and is another blog post entirely.) They are available right now, every day, in the mundane of my life.  In eating cereal in the morning and going in to work every day and brushing my teeth before I go to bed. It feels almost ridiculous, objectively, to say that my life is mundane because I live in freaking France but it’s true. The peak becomes the plateau. I live in France and that is amazing but I still spend my Saturdays laying in bed watching Netflix.

So, the way I see it, we have two options: we can learn to love ourselves within the mundane because the mundane is really all we have , or we can live our entire lives thirsty. And I don’t think either is a bad option, really. But the key to surviving - to staying above water - in each option is gratitude. I will most likely [hopefully] spend the next decade of my life chasing after adventure and love and those late nights and that twirling around in the moonlight because that’s who I am. And I will spend most of that time thirsty and crying over something [probably] but I am going to try to remember to drink more water - to be more grateful. And maybe going to an office every day and tucking your kids into bed every night is your adventure - maybe it’s what you waited for. Either way, let’s be grateful.

This includes gratitude for the pain, gratitude for the growing pains. Trust me, I’m not pushing some feel-good “look at all you have” speech on you. I’m the last person on the list of people who wants to be told to be grateful for a healthy body and a place to live because that puts me in the top 1% (even though these are very, very good reasons to be grateful). I’m talking about even being grateful that it hurts. Being grateful for a God who is gracious and patient with our ungratefulness. Being grateful that God loves us enough to not let us stay where we are. Being grateful that pain turns into ministry, that we are even able to feel pain.

I don’t say any of this to discount or eradicate the hope of breakthrough or the hope for more. I’m just saying, there is always going to be more. So look back on all the “more” you’ve already achieved and be grateful. Look forward to the “more” that is available to you and be grateful. And, most importantly, look at the promised land around you and be grateful. Perhaps this gratitude won’t make us feel better right away but I am convinced that it will fill us up. I am convinced that it will cultivate joy. It will hydrate us.

Oh, and go drink a glass of water.

x Ash

Again, photo credit goes to Sam Telling 

[ashleycusick]

Water - Revisited

You feel as though you're floating in the middle of the ocean Lost But you've always loved the ocean, haven't you? You've always loved the water The way it surrounds Covered It dares to embrace the parts of you that even you hate Slowly eroding the rough edges Gently, gracious Don't be afraid to sink, my child The surface is sunny But the deep is glory I am the ocean I cover you, I touch you, I mold you - slowly, gently, gracious I am the glory The ocean is the best place for you right now Trust me Let me Give in to me You feel as though you're floating but I am with you - all around you

This week has been fairly quiet around Béthanie. God is working on me. God is working on France. Still praying for healing, still praying for more trust. It's beginning to warm up just a bit and spring is beginning to break through early which is a lovely gift. Keep in touch - Facebook message me, e-mail me, send a telegraph. Pray for me, pray with me.

All my love,

Ashley  P.S. - I am convinced that God has a special place in his heart for watercolors because they have a mind of their own and you can only control it so much so the final outcome is really up to what God wants. I love watercolor.