onward and upward.

dear reader,

the screen name purpleastoria was born out of two things i loved most: the color purple and belief in a universe beyond the one currently known and occupied. now, however, i am more of a pink-preferring girl and finding peace in a nebulous compressing sky has been long abandoned for the comfort sought right here on the ground; the earth below me moves and breathes mysteries and open-ended questions constantly.

i think i have outgrown purpleastoria.

but never you.

i will no longer update this blog but cannot delete it. purpleastoria is not my persona anymore but i would be betraying myself to deny the personal significance of what i've posted here.

the need to share my experiences creatively has led me to establish a new home for my writing:

murriedlife.wordpress.com

i hope you'll find me.

-a.

anything but unlucky: 2013

dear reader,

happy new year to you. sincerely, thank you for catching up on my scattered ramblings. i wanted to post some reflections about this past year, which i have deemed 2013: the year the universe decided to test me and i passed (i think). if you know anything about me at all, you know that i constantly struggle with my unproductive flaws and ways to improve myself as a woman, a thinker, a friend, a breather of oxygen.

countdown, here we go.

13. i rarely bake or cook. call me lazy, or call me efficient: i prefer my foods simple (steamed vegetable of choice and boiled chicken with red curry sauce = weekly dinner option) and quickly thrown together. recipes that involve multiple verbs ("peel," "dice," "grate," "stir," "grease," "blend," and "combine" before i hit the second line) and ingredient lists longer than the contents of diet coke usually get filed and never used. but in 2013, my best friend introduced me to bountiful baskets (for $15, i was presented with a vegetable and a fruit basket containing fresh, seasonal produce) which has led to some fantastic new recipes. since i am not picky about veggies or fruit, each week's bounty was consumed in its entirety, since i hate waste and i was up for a new cooking challenge. i made turkey meatballs, roasted rainbow carrots with honey balsamic vinegar glaze, creamed corn and egg casserole with fresh anaheim peppers and ham, kale and sweet potato salad, mashed cauliflower with toasted breadcrumbs and parmesan, and many flavorful additions to my morning protein shake (fresh mango, pear, pomegranate, bananas, and blueberries).

12. exploring the northwest this past year has made me appreciate how lucky i am to choose whether i want to wake up to the hum of car tires on blacktop and never lose sight of building lights on rooftops or if my afternoon walk involves a lakeside mountain goat and finding sleeping bats nestled in rafters. in 2013, i roadtripped to montana, washington, and utah.

11. my annual closet purge revealed that i own so many beautiful clothing items and accessories-- each carrying a story about where i found it, how i wore it, and how much i really love getting ready in the morning to greet the world with an a-line jersey knit skirt or a lace peplum top or a studded gold bangle on my wrist.

10. very few people understand me and i am still in the process of accepting that i am mostly to blame for keeping secrets but finding a comfortable way to change how i interact with people (mainly of the opposite gender). so even though i consider myself truly close to a just handful of guys, 2013 severed my ties with two important people; shattering my idealization of a role model and friend in one case forced me to take a step back and question how, once again, i could so stupidly fail the test of finding a trustworthy, decent partner. i continue to struggle with letting go, removing the harsh personal blame and unnecessary guilt, and coming to terms with the idea that i am what x wants but not who he chooses. but i do not deserve to be pitted against petty, dependent bitches; so i move on.

9. my two best friends both had babies in september. ty and nancy are so very fortunate to be born into loving, supportive families with friends that loved them before they even met.

8. 2013 was the year of my lips taking center stage. lipstick, lip gloss, lip balm, lip crayon: the collection amasses.

7. for the first time ever, my alcoholic drink of choice is a glass of wine. while i prefer the sweet, preferably lightly carbonated wines, i really enjoy a cab with dinner. i tasted my first syrah, malbec, and viognier in 2013 and am excited to participate in the accessible sophistication of being deemed a wino.

6. i indulged in young adult fiction in 2013. if you know anything about me, you know that i pride myself in being a critic, a naysayer, and stubbornly refusing to "like" popular writing and movies. something changed this year, reader, and i found myself enjoying the hunger games series and pretty much anything written or inspired by john green. this is really a.big.deal.

5. i've always been a fan of makeup. what's not to love about shimmering eyeshadow or a new tube of mascara that never clumps? but in 2013, i realized i was definitely on the downward slope to 30 years old, and i decided to focus on a skincare regimen. during a mary kay make up demo, the rep stated, "it's easier to prevent than it is to reverse," and i suddenly imagined my face covered in little cornflakes needing to be microdermabrasion'ed the hell off of my skin. i suppose 28 years old isn't a terrible age to hopefully preserve a little of my youth even though my freckles and oddly placed facial moles continue to cause me great consternation.

4. my kia died by exploding the heater core and flooding the floor while i was at work. a tree fell on my new car.  a giant nail lodged itself into my car tire. i am cursed with automobile issues, but 2013 taught me to be thankful and appreciate people with car-fixing skills. i have my talents and hobbies, but none of them are mechanically-based; i am so thankful that other people are good at what i am not and their passion helps people like me who ask google "why is my car flooded?" or "siri, directions to les schwab."

3. selfies were out of control this year, reader. i will never be able to forget what i looked like in 2013 from a variety of angles in different reflective surfaces.

2. my reputation for shirking any love interests peaked in 2013. my friends send me text messages with anti-love sentiments that remind them of me. but, even though i rarely talk about my intimate personal life, this past year was filled with interesting people, stories, and memories (some excellent and some irritating) that should be preserved in serifs or pixels-- someday.

1. as i look ahead to 2014, i am overwhelmed with thankfulness. i still feel young-- even if i am not anymore. physically, i am as strong as ever (who would have EVER though i would be the most athletic in my group of frieds-- of course, "athletic" is loosely applied). i wallow less in apathy and don't cry (regularly) in the shower anymore. my friends are varied and few but still just as amazing as ever. in 2014, i hope to exude a positive attitude of openness, willingness, and acceptance to continue to explore this simultaneously cruddy and intriguing world around me. invite me to share your joys too, reader.

your move, 2014. i'm ready.

dear self

in search of my box fan, i noticed a stack of high school yearbooks in my old closet at my parents' house this afternoon. when i opened my freshman yearbook from my california high school, a card dropped out from between some pages.

a cheesy black stallion in a meadow looked up at me, and my stomach sunk like someone pounded me through the floor and i plunked into the garage. but i opened the card anyway, recognized the handwriting immediately, and her salutation, "hey dork," caused me to hit the pause button.

i spent the last month wallowing over x's. i mean, it wasnt all that bad-- but really, wheres the "letter" to yourself, self?

and then there it was.

"youve been through a hell of a lot but there wasnt a time when you wouldnt help me." yes, the time an x needed a ride to the emergency room for an ear infection, or needed a place to stay between apartments, or needed my library card to rent a movie: i tried to be someone x could count on.

summer is so often the new start of the year for me. winter truly causes me to withdraw; summer begs to be experienced. "take some time out of your day and appreciate the little things that make you happy. there are lots, you just have to look for them." so what, x decided to knock up another girl; why must all the world fade to gray and splintered paths?

let me break here: sarah was my best friend for many years until she killed herself in 2001. she died on bad terms with me. like others and like x, she left me when i really needed her. but, she apparently really needed me and i was too proud and too stupid to provide her the forgiveness and compassion that she wanted. "i can only hope the rest of these precious years are good to you"-- this was the last birthday card she would ever give me before she took her life eight months and nineteen days later. she still loved me when she wrote this though; maybe thats what caused the last part to send me spiraling into oblivion:

"you are a strong person and i believe in you."

there. thats what i was hoping to achieve by writing to you, x. i wanted the affirmation that even though you careened through my life, i can still recover. but x severed my empathy and my desire for human connection rope.

and it took a dead girl's words for me to see the importance of working on that splice.

sarah, i have not said these words to you since you died: thank you. at the end of an emotionally taxing month with my blog challenge and working through mending a friendship with my best friend after you and during a rather painful separation from my actual, living sibling, "i love you like a sister" is just really, really what i needed to hear.

i wish i could make this shit up.

love,
a.

dear x: begin again

dear x,

i began my journey of over-sharing to determine if i am capable of feeling love. i knew by doing so that i would resurrect reserved memories and expose some of you in the process. while i will admit that my love letters were not as productive as i initially hoped, i am so overwhelmed with a range of emotions for you-- and for the future.

perhaps it is too easy to blame my unwillingness to open up to new potential x's because of you. you, x, after all, lied to me, said crushing things, changed your mind, and left me-- in some way-- alone. you have helped create this psyche, this outlook, this worth, this self,






until i realized it's time to take ownership of my past, and that means you, x. you happened. i will never be the same. but at the end of the day, or at the first morning yawn, you are stagnant; ever effacing; past. writing to you this month has brought me some closure by materializing (as much as an internet blog post can do) my feelings and allowing an audience to empathize with a rarely deeply discussed sector of my life, body, and mind.

thank you, dear readers, for working through my love letters with me; maybe you have reflected on what has brought you to this point in your own life-- and who you do and don't share those experiences with now.

i suppose what remains is acceptance. dear x, i know everything happens for a reason. i can't deny how empty i feel at times, as if my ribs are parentheses bearing a dull heart that pitters listlessly and patters unfulfilled. but capturing some of those moments with you in these entries lets me relive and acknowledge what once made me happy; and what is love if not to share joy with and for someone. while simply stating that i forgive you and you are eternally free from the prison of my darkened mind is just not possible, i do however, x, agree to start letting go.

of what was.


of what could have been.

and perhaps releasing the bitterness and sadness and jadedness will generate space for someone who will see the fingerprints you left on my heart but who will surprise me by sailing away with me on the tide that gently slips over those grooves-- dispersing your memories into the swells that carry us into the horizon, enchanted.

love,

a.







i almost brought him up

but you start to talk about the movies

that your family watches every single christmas

so i won't talk about that

for the first time

what's passed is

past

dear x: go your own way

dear x,

you know in movies when two lovers part and there's a slow motion shot of one of them walking away in the rain and the other squints through the raindrops and the walker turns around to see if lover is watching and they catch each others' backs instead? and you're like, why.

i wish we could have been so lucky. they at least had closure through the pleading stares and quivering mouths.

instead, there was.

and then there wasn't.

at least if i had that last glance out the window as you drove away, and you caught my parted lips and fingernail biting in your rearview mirror--

or listening to the soft pads of your footsteps in the linoleum hallway, and that hard lump in my throat grew tighter with the fading decrescendo of your steps and slight drag of your left foot--

instead, saying goodbye was like i dove underwater, distracted with sensory images and the rush of cool over my skin, as i looked up at you through the ripples; and as the light cut through the current, i watched your transient shape distort into nothing but crests and eddies upon surfacing. i took my first breath and broke at the empty silence of your absence.

this love letter asks you to find me, before someone else does. sometimes i forget that you don't know this, because you don't read my letters or listen to the song in my heart that hums against my ribcage every evening for you.

perhaps, given the opportunity, i would not greet you again, sweeping my dripping black hair from my eyes as i emerged from the water, reaching for your hand to pull me up, inhaling how your skin smells in sunlight--

because to say hello would only tempt another painful goodbye to your ghost.

love,
a.

tell me why

everything turned around

dear x: down

dear x,

you don't know this but i send you love letters every day:

in the dandelion puffs floating through the afternoon air, a secret wish attached to each brown seed.

with each brush stroke through my inky hair, taming the strands after their fiery dance with the dryer to look polished and smooth.

at the turn of each doorknob, a quick inhaled breath to hold back disappointment when i know you're not on the other side.

on the road, my bike tires hum with velocity-- calling out a gearsong, hoping you'll recognize its pattern and meet up after the next hill.

against flannel sheets at 3 am, my cheek brushes against cold pillow and i sigh with solitude and sleep.

between the tap of each keyboard character, my forefingers still remember tracing the moles on your back.

before i almost surrender to the silence of lacking emotions and feelings for anyone else, i mouth the words "i love you" silently, wondering if the tiniest motion of my lips will decorate the evening air, tiptoe in shadow to your end of the city, and come to rest upon your forehead-- so slightly you think perhaps a breeze snuck through your windowpanes.

love,
a.

i'll try to kiss you if you let me

this can't be the end

dear x: think of you

dear x,

one of my biggest fears is fading into middle age, mediocre and useless. i am terrified of the day when i will walk through a room unnoticed. they will find suitable replacements for my skills, and i will no longer be relevant.

i worry that i passed my prime. those years with you were the best; but, as fun and memorable as they were, what if that's as good as it gets for me? and worse, what if you have chosen to disown the shared experiences that shaped me-- forfeit any association with our past, our lovely little garden of travels and sunsets and handmade birthday cards and content routines?

because even more heartbreaking than being forgotten is to be acknowledged and then dismissed.

i am writing you this love letter, x, because it is time to confront my fears and appeal to your memory for the strength to mitigate my own chaos. you were always so good at sensing my impending storms and then forging blue skies and waterless rainbows for me-- you reacted so seamlessly that i didnt know i needed your barometer and a raincoat. i lived for so many years without lightning cracks or hurricane swells-- but what if being apart from you, x, for the rest of my life, means fading into gray-washed cloudless, breezeless mundaneness?

someday all they will hear is the sound of my shoes instead of turning their heads to see the tears in my eyes at the realization that the best is hard to forget.

love,
a.

just to put your mind at ease

you don't owe me anything

you paid me well in memories

dear x: use your love

dear x,

i am writing you this love letter because you deserve one. i met you at the worst yet perfect time-- for me. for eight months, i soaked my self-esteem with your admiration and never asked you to hold back. sometimes, i think karma is still raking away at my world for what i did-- or didn't-- feel for and say to you. but your niceness exhausted me. your compliments about my academic accomplishments or my hair accessories leached any available sentimentality out of my heart; i felt continuously taxed to return your praise and affection. so i did what i consider to be my second best skill: i shut down.

i can go on and on about the jerks i've met. you are not one of them-- not even close. you cooked me dinner with vegetables from your garden. you spent hours with me at the zoo so i could walk through the butterfly exhibit and painstakingly take photos of every. single. animal. you asked me thoughtful questions and listened to my answers. you embraced me so snugly, with seemingly endless arms and hands and wrists and biceps, that i think i know what it would be like to sleep next to an octopus. but i felt nothing for you. and you never asked or complained, which just made spending time at your mom's house or eating dinner with your roommate or watching you play with your chinchilla even more maddening for my heart.

dear x, you are the handsomest boy to ever don a suit vest with skinny jeans. but there's a difference between logic and feeling, reason and emotion, truth and love. someday i hope to pass by you relaxing on the patio of your favorite bistro, sitting across from a fashionable and intelligent heiress, dreaming up weekend adventures from books you've read with your hands entwined, like little cups holding sunsets and laughter from dances across your kitchen floor.

love,
a.

i'll tell you all my secrets if you stick around

the undercover lover's under the covers

dear x: sparks fly

dear x,

writing about you has allowed me to live in two separate worlds this month: the past and the present. i lived this once, love; and now, by smashing memories into typed characters i live again.

there are some experiences i would live over and over if i could. the problem lately is that i am distracted by your ghost in this room, therefore i fail to be present wholly anywhere, and i cheat myself of enjoying simplicity or complexity-- always wishing that you could be here too. so now my experiences are sort of halved, cheapened, incomplete.

i am writing you this love letter, x, to share these gigantic suitcases of memories that i lug with me, up stairs, in the rain, across states, outside your workplace, down the abyss that occupies so many of my solitary moments. wont you please take some baggage and unzip compartments and sort with me?

here, that shirt is from the first time i spent the night with you at your new house. we split a bottle of white zin, listened to music through your television, and actually said goodnight in person. you kissed my shoulder and whispered, "youre so cute" as i fell asleep and dreamed about fish.

oh look, i wore those earrings the night you told me you we could never just be friends. "you have bows in your ears," you said, as you played with my hair.

that, that is the perfume i bought a few days before you stayed at my place for a few weeks. spray it a bit; smelling it reminds me of sitting around my coffee table in the evenings watching archer and you said, "i usually cant be around people for very long, but i dont know. i like being with you." and then we talked about movies and i liked how your forearm felt under mine.

and then theres the empty suitcase. you found that. i bring that with me wherever i go, just in case you decide to come back. i can fill it with new memories. its silly, i knew youd think so. but its here, always, so that i can be ready.

im still here.

love,
a.

lead me up the staircase

won't you whisper soft and slow

i'm captivated by you, baby,

like a fireworks show

(absolutely love this cover of one of my swifty favorites)

dear x: animal

dear x,

so many of these stories take place in a bar or in a dark bedroom. this one begins in between.

i am writing you this love letter, x, because not many boys would walk miles with me, aimlessly strolling the sprinkler-flooded, unevenly patched streets of boise on an unusually warm may night. but you did, laughing at my awkward self-deprecating jabs and mild aversion to encountering midnight wildlife in your neighbor's garbage.

when i agreed to keep walking, you said, "but it's really far." as if my feet submitted to a curfew, a contrived limit, a sense of finality. i suppose, x, you didnt know that our stroll odometer measured arm brushes, how many times i could smell you in the evening air, and no yawns-- and not in kilometers or how many hours left until my alarm interrupted your embrace.

love,
a.

i'm not asleep

i'm up for the fight

into the magic

i don't want the concrete
i am alive comes with the tragic