Hello! Kristina here, that other ginger-to-luminescent-hair transforming monster you’ve seen popping up on this here blog lately. I’m (not so) secretly really stoked to have the opportunity to guest blog for my bff, Delightfully-Tacky. Naturally I’ve been reading her blog since the start, and it kind of geeks me out to have my silly ol’ face on it. I don’t normally do this kind of thing, so forgive me if I bore. I am currently spending my summer road-tripping more-or-less across the country. So when there was a gap in my plans, I jumped on the chance to drive up to Tacoma and spend some time with Elizabeth and finally meet Dan. What’s an extra 2,000 miles? NBD. You guys should see how cute Tacoma is, I completely fell in love with all of the old houses, little shops, and the people who live there. Did I mention how cute Elizabeth and Dan are together too?? If it weren’t for all of the cloudiness, I would move there in a heartbeat.

I have been trying to figure out what I want to write about, because Elizabeth has already talked about some of the highlights of my visit (um, 1022 South, yes please). But really, the highlight of my trip was spending some time with my bff. I’ve never been the type to have a lot of close girlfriends, so my friendship with Elizabeth is extraordinarily special to me. We’ve known each other since 8th grade, and have been there for each other through all the tumult of growing up, college, failed relationships, everything else that comes along with the progression of life. At this point in my life I am coming out of one of those “failed relationship” stages, and am admittedly a bit of a wreck of a human being. To have a friend that you can be totally yourself around, vulnerable, cry, and know that I won’t be judged for at times ungracefully mucking my way through healing, is such a treasure.

dress/forever 21 :: boots/nordstrom :: leg warmers/american apparel :: shades/free people

As I was doing my daily yoga yesterday along with one of Ashley Turner’s DVDs, she was talking about how you should consider the five people closest to you, and what that reflects about your inner state. Are those people uplifting, nurturing, and supportive of your goals and who you are? One of my favorite yogic mantras is “Om Namah Shivaya,” which roughly translated means “I respect and honor my true self.” Embodying that mantra and making sure the people around me equally respect and honor who I am has been my true journey so far this summer. The thousands of miles traveled across this country in my wee little car seem to be just a manifestation of that. I will have traveled approximately 10,000 miles by the time I return home, but it seems that the distance covered in inner growth pales in comparison to that at times.

For any lady (or man!) who has experienced becoming and adult and simultaneously recovering from the end of a relationship, you know it is never easy, and healing always seems to take more time that it should. But for me, right now, most of the time this deep feeling of being blessed by having those select people who are closest to me in my life overwhelms the crappy feelings enough to keep this girl movin’ on. Even though the relationship Elizabeth and I have is unconventional (we rarely *actually* speak, and have grown accustomed to seeing each other maybe once a year if we’re lucky), I will always count her as one of those closest five, and am incredibly happy to have spent some legitimate time with her in her natural habitat.

Right now I’m reading “The Path to Love” by Deepak Chopra, and I just wanted to end this with a little quote that has inspired me lately. I think it kind of compliments the recent post “The Infinite Variety of Individuals.” I don’t think I am alone in feeling a bit like a roughly pieced together collection of parts most of the time, so this to me is beautiful little piece of advice to myself and all of us women out there:

“This shift in perception happens not by changing who you are but by seeing who you are and then shining it forth. If you were able to exhibit the full grandeur of your being, your whole life would be a romance, one long love story dedicated to ecstasy and joy…Who you really are is not a collection of parts but a whole. Seeing yourself as whole is the first step toward seeing yourself as truly attractive.” (page 72 &75)

You are beautiful, make sure the people closest to you believe that too, and embrace it =)