Ashlin B
-
Shoes by the front door, a stone fireplace with stockings that looks sturdy enough to brace my shaky frame against. I stand there half expecting myself to blurt out the words everyone keeps telling me not to say. Because the words that pour out of the radio this time of year are, “let your heart…
-
There was a time when coming home was heavy with grief. My days were spent with white knuckles, mapping out my escape route. Every time someone asked if I was ever coming home, the knot in my stomach tightened. I faked a smile with my shrugged shoulders, but I knew the answer. It seemed impossible…
-
My life these days is sunshine warming my face in my childhood room, mid-morning coffee, memories of soggy streets in South America. Silence lulls me to sleep, along with the smell and burn of menthol on my back and legs. This is home, with its cold autumn air and slow traffic on the streets that…
-
You know what I’m learning? There’s no symphony that starts playing when the good stuff shows up. And God answers prayers that I longed for, but never even knew how to pray. The old songs and places won’t always break your heart; and there’s no such thing as too much love. You also don’t have…
-
Five months ago, I slung back a cup of coffee in my second floor apartment that had a perfect gray and white themed aesthetic. Nothing was out of place; accents of gold were strategically arranged throughout the room. My textbook laid across my lap, I read about Colombia and took notes for the class I…
-
In the days after we celebrated, I spent most of my hours painting. I am not a painter. But that month my hands stayed stained with shades of blue, my shirts dyed, brushes dripping over the sink. I left my apartment only to grab takeout and steal from the sky another hue to replicate. The…
-
Five years. That’s how long it’s been since I stopped eating refined sugar and white flour. The moment the doctor told me this could affect you having children, that was the moment it all changed for me. I cried to you in the bathroom floor. We went on drives and I ate horrible sugar-free candy…
-
I came to you. The silence we swam in that day felt like hours, in that tiny room we created tension that would last for years. Your ocean eyes were locked on the floor, my arms stayed crossed in anger. Last week, in a room where the walls were the same kind of dull and…
-
I had a feeling when we were driving back from Tennessee that he was going to break my heart. The fog sat between the mountains and I found myself spilling all my best words to him. I put every little part of me in his hands. I trusted him with every thought, every fear, the…
-
I wish I’d known sooner that the remedy for my heartbreak & feeling stuck was ten days of mud, sweat, tears, and becoming like a child again. But God also knew that in the years before this moment, the idea of dropping a summer class to throw on basketball shorts and get covered in red…
ASHLIN'S BLOG 