As I get older, I’ve learned how to check in with myself more often to notice the emotion I am feeling, take note of the way they rest within me, and see if they’re my energy or something exterior attempting to make myself grow or close. Something that correlates with age and my check-ins is my career. This year, this economic climate and my personal ebbs and flows have made what I’m noticing about myself even stronger. 
I take note of how in awe I am of people who know what they have always wanted to do. Or perhaps not even that exactly, but who push themselves endlessly until they achieve what they’ve been working towards.
In my most recent check-in. I’ve noticed the feeling of peace of not being one of those people. I don’t think I ever have been. This used to cause me so much anxiety and shame around where I was and how I spent my time. I’m still in, what feels like, the very beginning stage of my marketing career and I’m still not sure if I even enjoy it. I’m not sure if there will ever be anything I enjoy doing 40 hours a week for a paycheck and benefits.

I’ve always been someone who enjoys a closed door and a guitar in my hands or a notebook in front of me. I enjoy conversation with people who deeply listen and let me know what’s on their minds and hearts. I long for connection within myself and others even when I don’t know how to ask for it - I think both parts of that are inherently human - but that is the only thing I’ve ever chased. To see and be seen. 

During this time in history and what feels like an overload of responsibilities, I want to feel connected to those who are also just finding peace for the first time throughout all of the dizziness. “One day at a time” is something I’ve said a lot through this pandemic, and it is there where I have found my joy. 

Sitting here, a certain version of this hit me. Smack on my chest, in from the sun rays outside.
Somewhere, a long time from now, another version of this, of me, of these thoughts exist. And that somewhere will be our home that we don’t own yet, sitting on our favorite sofa to nap on that we haven’t gotten around to buying yet. I don’t know the details. I don’t know who else is there or what I’m doing or what life is generally like. But I know I’m thinking about how lucky i am, how lucky we are, to be here now. Even if that now isn’t for years. Even if it’s just a sunny afternoon during the week in the month of May, the same feeling will hit me. 
And until then, I’ll keep sitting here and holding onto that thought about luck, as the rays from the sun hits me smack on the chest.

some people say that they don’t feel different on their birthday, but i’ve always been acutely aware of one number to the next. 23 was wild, 24 was extremely freeing, 25 was the most challenging year yet and where it leaves me is just feeling so small. and the most surprising part of saying that is how alive i feel.

at 26, i’m acknowledging that it is all my life.
the habitual chores, the walk to get a cup of coffee, the time i left the party early, the drive home to my parents, the blueberries at 2pm, picking out the outfit for the day, the staring contests with my cat, the cuddles on the couch, the wild, the free, the challenging. it has all been my life happening in epically small moments. we all live in a world that puts no value on the small moments but it’s the same world where everyone is seeking out the wonder and awe of them. 

it’s everything to me. it’s the core of it. i’m here, after it all, finding a way to celebrate all of the confusing and surprising things that come and to make interest out of it; to make it my heart.
and i think that’s my success story,
that at the end of the day, it’s mine. and i’m so lucky to have another year, yet alone another day of it.

amargedom:

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
(via goodreadss)

(via metr0link)

the more i love him
the more i know love
i know more about the way i love

how softness makes me soft
the sharp edges make a mirror out of me

how he can’t give back all of the time and that’s familiar
how the love is something that balloons within me
and doesn’t pop

the more i love him
the more i know love
i know more about letting go

and how that, too, is love.

heavensghost:

Mary Oliver

(via wildfairy)