life of haleigh

I think I was like - the last of my friend group to figure out about being self conscious about my body. Every thirteen year old it seems has this moment of like “oh my god, I’m supposed to hate being chubby?” Well imagine me, a baby-faced ninth grader, finding out I’m supposed to be kinda hot now instead of cute. There were so many feelings that came with that. Because I had friends with long hair and straight teeth, and my braces were still months away from coming off, and because I wasn’t ready to give up heaping servings of spaghetti. I could not, at the time, come to terms with the fact that I was supposed to desire skinniness. In fact, I never even thought I was ‘big’ in the first place.  Then that pivotal moment happened. I think I was 14. We were getting ready for a party and trading clothes, how girls do, and someone quietly noted how they could never fit into my clothes because they were ‘way too big.’ Ugh. My heart still breaks for the me who heard that. I never thought ...

I have spent almost all my life trying to be cool.   At first, it was my big sister who was the coolest. She got braces first, which I desperately wanted, and she had all the knee high boots and hair straighteners and bling-y things way before I did. When she walked out of her room in the morning I stared at her over my bowl of lucky charms like she was THE celebrity icon. There might as well have been a spotlight on her.  The leader of the social ladder. Friends on friends on friends. She got to have Facebook, which of course made me jealous, but when I got a feature in the profile picture, I practically jumped out of my pants. She was cool, cool.  As I got older, she got cooler. She had GUY friends. She went to university. She drank BEER. She was funny, brave, athletic, tall & skinny. Dream girl. And that wasn’t even the coolest thing about her. What made my sister rank #1 for twenty two years in a row and counting was who she was right down at the core. She never, ...

I always mistook discomfort for bad news. Anything even sort of remotely maybe wrong sent up all the red flags, warning signs, alarm bells. I never bothered to figure out why. So, even though I was learning to be with myself, I wasn’t getting to really know who I was. I wasn’t putting two and two together. Not searching for cause of my effects. I was sitting there with a stomach ache thinking, “this sucks” instead of thinking, “did I eat something that caused this?” So I chose to start noticing. To hear my words from other peoples ears and ask myself if I was a person I would be friends with. To listen to my intuition and see people for who they really are. To change my perspective from “why me?” to “why did this happen?” and not to blame myself but just to understand the course of events that led me here. You know that feeling when you’re in the water and you lay on your back with your ears underneath but your face is out? In that moment where you just feel really sort of light and un...

My friends tell me that my party trick is knowing every lyric to every song I've ever heard.  It's among my favourite party tricks (others, not so much). But for some reason, I just LOVE music. A good backstory, a good hook, everything about everything. I wish everyone could feel music the way that I do. So when someone shows me a song, its a very special thing for me. I always think about all things it could mean for them. If they're trying to tell me something that way, or if they just like the vibes. I learn all the words so we can sing it together. So I can understand it and understand them, too. And for the rest of eternity I will think of them when it comes on. I'll think about that one snapchat video where we couldn't even hear the concert in the background over the sound of us screaming along to Jason Aldean in that dusty field. Or when Water Under the Bridge by Adele came out and we couldn't help but laugh about what it meant to love someone. I'll r...

I had one guitar lesson ever in my life. He was a strange man with long hair and smelled like cigarettes and honestly, I was always better at piano so, needless to say, uninterested.   He said one thing I remember though: “don’t look at your fingers when you’re playing a chord, focus on how it feels. Close your eyes if you have to.”   He was trying to explain that feeling the chords out helps to make everything sound smoother, and it’s easier for your hand to memorize where to go.   I can’t look at the guitar when I play anymore. And so many other things. So many things I was doing out of desperate need for order, complete exaction. Routines and plans and everything else. Doing things because I was used to doing them, looking at the strings and knowing this how they’re supposed to be played.   But how does it feel? Is this even a good song?   Wondering how many times I’ve turned down this street and not known it’s name. How many times I had l...

Learning to love yourself is something you will do over and over again through every phase of your life. It’s a lifelong promise. You have to forgive every mistake, accept every flaw. Love yourself through rejection and failure and scary nights alone and bad news and bad people. You have to push yourself to and past your limits. Be brave and be exhausted. You will face every struggle with you and yourself only. You will only ever walk in your own shoes, on your own path. Some days you won’t have love for yourself. Some days you will look at the poster on your wall of that singer you adore, and look down at yourself and wonder why your waist isn’t as skinny and why your hair isn’t as soft. Some days you’ll see other people be successful and wonder why you aren’t there. And why, at just twenty-one, you haven’t done everything with your life yet. Some days, you will fight with the guilt of being lazy, or the awkwardness of that interaction with your friend. You will stare at a photo of yo...