July habits

I've spent a bit of time, at least in the past year or so, thinking about habits.  

I'm talking about physical habits, the ones I do with my body on a daily basis.  These are a different kind of habit than ones of the heart, like my tendency to label people that drive Hummers or respect Ann Coulter.  

I've been pondering the ones that I have that I wish I didn't.  Like listening to my iPod anywhere and everywhere I go or incessantly destroying my cuticles because I don't stop touching them or how I drink coffee every morning.  

These are habits of the physical nature.  

Although, I know there is no such thing.  Everything is connected, after all.  

For the sake of argument, though, I'll concede to delineate between two inseparable worlds.

July gives me a chance to lean into my habits.  In that, I get to be someone new.  In july, I don't have to conform to what is expected of me by people that I share life.  No one knows what to expect.  

We're all new to each other.

In July, all of my routines are different, forcing me out of my habits.  For good or for bad, I have to figure myself out outside of who I've convinced myself and others that I am.

In July, I realize how easy it is to be new.  I realize how my environment dictates my choices and how bendable I am to it.

In July, I can feel which habits follow me, regardless of environment, and I get to figure those out as I sense their shadows behind me.

I love July. 

It's hard as hell.  And I love it.

I love it because I get to feel bigger than my issues.  I get to see who and what I am and I get to decide who and what I want to be.

I didn't used to think this way.  I used to think that i was stuck in the stank of life that I had covered myself in.  At different moments and in different periods, I've covered myself in both the ugly and the beautiful.  And in each, it's hard to remember how I got there or how I might get out.

In the past two years, I've realized that I need people that remind me of who I am, that love me too much to lie to me, that walk the road with me.

It takes me an insane amount of time to develop these friendships.  Combine my introvertedness with a fierce sense of independence and fear of being known and you'll start to get the picture.

Despite all attempts to be a rolling stone, I do have these friends.  These people in my life where we can call each others' bluffs, sing new songs, share beautiful moments, cry together in bathroom stalls, and love intensely.  

It's intimacy.   It's beautiful.

And it's with these people that I feel safest to lay out my habits and ask for advice, for help, for clarity.  It takes a certain amount of vulnerability that is earned over time.  It happens when that vulnerability leads to open, honest conversations.

They happen on stoops in the dark of night and street corners in the early spring. 

In one such conversation, my friend suggested that change is as easy as making new habits.  

I scoffed in my heart, thinking she didn't understand.

But I was the one that didn't understand.  It took months and months to let those words in my life.  It took new experiences.  It took chances.  It took a good hard look at my life.  It took all of me.  

But she was right.  Sometimes you just need to make new habits.

I think about that conversation every time I pass the corner where we stood to talk, less than two blocks from my apartment.  I think about it when I'm in school, when I'm in Indiana, when I'm in my car, and when I'm sitting in Jerusalem with eight more hours to wander before I board my plane home.

Environments, emotions, friendships, vulnerableness, and habits.

Every July, I get to lean into all of the above.

I love July.