Sunday, January 18, 2015

The Queen of Wishful Thinking.



Maybe due to my overactive imagination or possibly due to my Type-A personality, I like to visualize specific aspects of my future in great detail. I mostly keep these ideal scenarios to myself or share them with my closest friends (because what if it gets jinxed?!).

But other times, I've publicly detailed wishes about my future only to look back on them weeks, months or years later, only to realize how eerily accurate these scenarios had become. 

For example: 

May 5, 2007: I had just gotten a job at skirt! magazine and was making a wish list for all of the details I wanted for my first solo apartment. Less then a week later, despite a bit of drama, I found the apartment of my dreams. Twelve-foot ceilings, lots of windows and natural light, two fireplaces (with mantels!), my own little porch, beadboard everywhere, biking distance from the grocery store and my job. This was the launching point for seven fantastic years in Charleston.

July 13, 2009 and December 13, 2009: These took a bit longer to come to fruition, and some elements of these posts haven't even happened yet. But there I was, sitting in my house in downtown Charleston, dreaming about a white farmhouse in the country (surrounded by fields with a forest and stream behind the property) where I live with the man I love, who loves me back in a grown-up, healthy way. Fast-forwarding to 2014-2015: we're in a white 1930s farmhouse with wood floors, surrounded by fields and forests (with a stream!). The farm table, babies and chickens haven't come yet, but there's still time...

I have a lot of dreams written down for this year--things that are being honed in my brain and paper journal, for the time being--but I'm already eager to look back on what I've written.

Anyone else experiencing these kinds of moments of prayers answered/dreams fulfilled/futures visualized? Share!

Monday, January 5, 2015

2015 & 31.


It's the eve of my 31st birthday, which means it's been nearly a year since I've written anything in this graveyard of a blog. So much happened in 2014:
  • I left Charleston after seven glorious years in the Lowcountry
  • I moved to a farm in Chapel Hill, North Carolina -- to a home that felt like it had been waiting for me
  • Steven moved to LA and after a few months, rushed right back to join me in the South
  • I got a new job that allowed me to do a lot of traveling 
  • Steven and I got engaged!
  • Close friends are moving around and having babies and taking big steps in the grown-up world
It was a good year and a necessary year.

But now I'm experiencing those annual waves of restlessness that come with a new calendar year and a new year of life. 

2015 feels fresh and clean, like the new journal I cracked open on January 1, waiting to be filled with experiences (including a wedding).  Just like every year, I promise myself that I'll write more and experience more and push myself more. I take inventory of my flaws (there are a lot...complaining, lack of motivation, urgh...) and tell myself that this is the year that I can do a lot of fixing on all those loose and creaky places of my psyche.

Besides the tinkering on all of my inner problem areas, I'm trying to really embrace those waves of restlessness. I keep trying to figure out how to catch them and channel them into something useful and BIG. Regardless of all of the hopping around I've done in life, I often have the feeling that I'm sitting in a giant cosmic waiting room, tapping my toes and watching the clock. This year is a year for action and for making something of my life and not just letting things happen passively. I feel scared and not ready and more than ready all at the same time.


Happy 2015, y'all. Let's make something.