Mud & Lotus Stories

Reflections on growth, struggle and becoming.

Emily Zeiler Emily Zeiler

A Beautiful Mess

“I remember thinking, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It is supposed to be easy, fun, light, bright, full. But I was feeling dread, heavy, scared, unsure. It was the first time I really felt let down by life. I was young and had some idealistic thoughts of what life was going to look like. Or at least what it should look like. I couldn’t imagine what could possibly come next, what with this bursting of the bubble that I thought was life?”

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Emily Zeiler Emily Zeiler

The Unexpected Door

“For the umpteenth day in a row I woke up and thought about the truth and what I needed to do about it…”

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Emily Zeiler Emily Zeiler

It’s About Time

How did all of this time pass?” I asked myself. Youth is wasted on the young, I heard in a song a long time ago.

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Emily Zeiler Emily Zeiler

Life Without Instructions

“I didn’t receive my copy. When they were giving them out, mine must have gotten dropped, given to someone else, or lost.  I didn’t get mine.  Did you get yours?”  

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Emily Zeiler Emily Zeiler

A Changed Landscape

“As a child, he visited tobacco fields in his hometown in Canada and learned that the farmers quit watering the tobacco rather early in the season. ‘Why?’ He asked…”

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Emily Zeiler Emily Zeiler

The Long Middle

I always thought I knew the path ahead of me. I always had goals and I thought that ahead of goals was achievement. No one told me it’s not that simple…

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