The Lainey Day Blog

✍🏻 Lyrical Memiorist 🥾Hiker 🌲Nature acolyte 📕”I’m Not the Same Again Today” coming in 2024! 📝 More content @thelaineydayblog on Instagram.

[thelaineydayblog]

Regret.

The prison sentence all the convicts are denying exists. Fooled into believing it’s the end of options. Convinced the word ‘no’ erases what follows.

I’ve learned to love a painful meaty regret. One that leaves a permanent scar, Along with a story worth hearing, About a feeling worth sharing.

Regret marks the bottom; Where you push off, Or it pools.

Regret is not weakness But carrying it will make you so. The way out is down That’s what they’ve been hiding.

Live wide enough to regret, And live long enough to relearn.

Never risk your wisdom.

--Lainey

[thelaineydayblog]

[thelaineydayblog]

No one can tell you what feels like home. Trace your roots and find the truth.

Your father is Time and your mother is Earth.

Your spirit and secrets are safe.

There is no branch for shame.

You’ve earned your seat at the sunrise, And they’re indifferent to your birth order.

Peace grows wild here, And so do you.

You’re worthy of your wonder.

You belong.

We’ll be waiting.

--Lainey

[thelaineydayblog]

[thelaineydayblog]

I spent many years medicating against the ‘too muchness’ of life.

Forcing myself to want it ‘all,’ When really I only wanted ‘enough’.

‘Some’ is plenty.

The ‘more’ there is, the ‘more’ I have to feel.

The ‘more’ I have to protect against, manage, medicate.

Crushed by my own consumption, When I wasn’t even hungry.

Searching for a caption that wasn’t going to fit even if I found it.

All to match the agreed upon image.

Let me be your cautionary tale: The waves will always win. But ‘beached’ can be a new beginning.

Your dream life shouldn’t require that you be asleep to endure it.

--Lainey

[thelaineydayblog]

[thelaineydayblog]

You don't have to know yet!

In fact, knowing where this will take you may ruin the whole thing. The secret is, you may already be there if you think you’re going the wrong way.

Art is an exercise in walking backwards.

Not so much taking steps as retracing them.

Walking around our internal triage unit, deciding which wound can’t wait any longer.

Or getting lost completely, only to find the answers in the outskirts.

This is no coward’s path.

We seek out the cracks that would break another’s back, and wedge a foot into where all the answers live.

You don’t have to know yet,

You just have to prove the smallest footprint can be priceless.

-Lainey

[thelaineydayblog]

[thelaineydayblog]

Anyone who’s ever had a major surgery knows that when the body heals it forever comes with an asterisk. Reminders will come up in the form of twinges or aches, and movement will sometimes be limited.

We accept this pain we can point to.

We agree to intense rehabilitation at the time of injury, and understand the need for continued maintenance.

We even give ourselves to the ‘bad days’ when we may need to lean into healing.

And yet we condemn ourselves for walking with an emotional limp.

Healing is not about putting down the load, it’s about shifting the weight so it’s not so painful to carry. It's about creating a new way of living despite the pain instead of constantly longing for what was.

It’s learning to trust that the tools in your trauma are going to be essential for the rest of the trip, and healing means not wanting to leave them behind.

-Lainey

[thelaineydayblog]

I found us in the woods the other day.

We all know this feeling. Anxiety that crushes us from the ground up until our throats close, fingers woven so deeply into our frame that we begin to accept them, and even feel their pulse as our own. We learn to incorporate the intruder as a permanent resident, assuming it must serve some purpose. We continue to grow, almost unconscious of the parasite pressing in from the outside - this thing that swamps giants.

I found us in the woods the other day.

This is not a normal amount. We’re truly being crushed, and it’s okay to say so. In fact, it’s essential. You were meant to deal with pain, poverty, uncertainty, sickness, loss, sorrow and fear, but not all at once. It’s okay to cry.

I found us in the woods the other day. In spite of everything, we’re beautiful.

-Lainey

[thelaineydayblog]

I’ve finally moved into myself fully, After living out of labeled boxes for what seems like my lifetime. Things are finally arranged just so, and designed to suit only me. My blueprint is beautiful.

I keep all of my knowledge and wisdom out front where everyone can see it. It distracts from the leftover sadness and uncertainty that I haven’t put into storage yet. Each emotion is neatly organized in their own order so as to be easily accessible:

-Love has claimed the largest space and tends to spread out, but no one complains. -Joy bubbles up from the basement to say hello at least once a day. She generally finds worry, sadness and uncertainty ganging up again and making a mess in the attic. -Hope doesn’t mind staying on the shelf until she’s needed; which is more and more often. -And happiness has her own room but always leaves the door open. -Fear lives out back and sometimes wakes me up at night. We’re working on that. -My rage is always right where I left it, and it’s too big to move so I’m waiting until I have help.

I decorate with my dreams, which are proudly displayed on the walls, And music accompanies everything. Inside jokes abound since laughter serves as the diffuser to keep the air fresh. I still have a junk drawer that serves as a catch-all for my fleeting thoughts and partial memories, but make no mistake, I’m always down for a dump run.

I’m liberal with the Do Not Disturb sign so if you’re invited in you know you’re welcome. Very few stay the night though. It’s not that I don’t want connection, It’s just I now know what it really looks and feels like, And I won’t sacrifice sleep for a substitute.

I maintain my garden for myself, Not the neighbors. And I always leave a light on, In case I lose myself again.

Welcome Home

-Lainey

[thelaineydayblog]

[thelaineydayblog]

Life will not end in a tie.

You were never getting out for free anyway. Be a glutton for suffering and then hold them all captive at dinner parties.

No one wants to sit next to “fine”. Seat me beside every catastrophic comeback story and save me from “okay”.

The real laughter lives just on the other side of devastation and so do the real people.

Our richness is a result of life’s wrath.

Stop measuring your mediocrity. It already fits over everything.

Instead, play hard, lose big, and then come back and sit next to me.

-Lainey

[thelaineydayblog]

[thelaineydayblog]

Empathy is almost always part of the answer.

Shift sides and state their case; if only to yourself. Try and feel their fear. Because it’s always there, just as yours is, though you’ll rarely find it on your first attempt.

Very few are truly evil. The majority are just lost, just as you are.

So, just for today, surrender to their perspective. Regardless of your outrage.

We must hope that somewhere on the other side, someone else is quietly trying to see things from your point of view.

Find them.

-Lainey

[thelaineydayblog]

[thelaineydayblog]

Walking the path alone takes immeasurable courage and enormous bravery, regardless of the lie fear will tell you.

There is no weakness here. This is not a powerless position.

This is where the seeds of strength get planted even deeper. Where roots are anchored and connected to all that ever really mattered anyway. Where you do the work to make sure you never get blown over again.

This is where you scream into the void, not because you're alone, but because you're alive!

Where there is pain, there will be time to heal it. Where there is fear, there will be love to soothe, and when the tears come, there will be laughter to wash it all clean.

Don't be afraid to walk alone.

-Lainey