to the almosts,

There are some stories that live in the almosts. Timing that was slightly off, words that sat on the tip of our tongue for a second too long, moments that felt like they were leading somewhere until they didn’t. Stories you replay over and over in your head just to see how they might have unfolded if one thing had gone differently.

It’s as if the universe looks at you when you think you have something all figured out and whispers, not this time. You sit there wondering how you could’ve been wrong. What you could’ve done or not done, said or not said, just to maybe change the outcome. I wonder at times, do we really have control? Or does fate always have the upper hand?

I think that our almosts show us that not everything that is meant to be felt is meant to stay. But everything we feel shows us so much beauty. The beauty of connection with the hundreds of faces we cross paths with. Some last just a moment, some that stay for years,  and the rare few that find a way to last forever.

to the ones who add the light,

Some people move through your life quietly, adding something to it without ever making a big deal about it. They change your day to day with the simplest of gestures, never quite realizing how much their thoughtfulness matters. Their presence becomes something steady and warm, until one day you find yourself wondering how life ever felt complete before they were in it.

And that’s the funny thing about life. For so long we move through it without certain people, not knowing the space they will one day fill. Then they arrive, weaving themselves into the rhythm of your days, until you can’t imagine things without them. I have people like that in my life, who truly make me more myself. The ones who add the light again and again, often without even realizing they do.

to the number I’ve never been,

Since I was young, I knew my life wouldn’t look conventional, almost in every way. I really don’t even know why but growing up, a life where you move neatly through the motions of school, degree, job, ring, house on the corner, wasn’t what I pictured for myself. There has always been something in me that felt like my path would just unfold differently.

When it came to a career, I didn’t know what that meant. Finishing high school, I didn’t even think I wanted to go to college. I just knew I wanted to do something cool and different. I knew I didn’t want to be another face in the crowd, another name on a list, or another number on a roster somewhere.

When I first started the job that I have today, I had no idea what was waiting for me. I was working in a small retail clothing shop a couple of days a week. It wasn’t much yet, but something about it felt different from the very beginning. I knew it was going to become something, and more than that I knew that I wanted to become something with it. I had no idea that when I was sitting in that little store each weekend, I was sitting inside walls that would quietly grow me up and become part of who I am entirely.

to everything changing but us,

I still see us at ten years old, filming music videos in our bedrooms like the world was something we could rehearse for. Not a care in the world except what song we’d be singing and dancing to next. And on these nights, we’d play pretend and stay up late talking about what everything would be like when we were finally older; almost like we couldn’t wait. What kind of cars we’d drive. The boys we’d date. Where we’d live & go to college. When we’d get married. We were in such a hurry to grow up when we were having the time of our lives right where we were at.

As you get older there are always friendships that don’t last. Some aren’t meant to stay with you for a lifetime. But I’ve always found it so beautiful that there are some that do. Some that stay so effortlessly through every change and every season of life. Nothing seems to shake those few core friendships that you’re just supposed to have.

to the moments after,

Sometimes it isn’t until something has ended that you understand what it’s been. And in the moments after, you find yourself smiling, realizing how lucky you were that it happened at all.

The moments after give us so many things. They leave us with a warm heart and a mind that drifts; replaying small bits and pieces long after everything else has moved on. They give us longing, not to undo what ended, but to experience something like it again, as soon as life allows. They give us gratitude for the people, the places, and the exact circumstances that came together so effortlessly. You find yourself wondering how you were ever meant to be right there, with that person, loving life as much as you did, in that exact moment. And they give us reflection. The kind that eventually lets us see things for exactly what they were, no matter how long it takes, or how happy or bittersweet that understanding becomes.

to the feeling itself,

I’ve always been someone who appreciates the way we get to experience feelings. The quiet miracle of being moved by the exact moments that we are living inside of.

There’s a truth you carry long before you know how to articulate it, and that is that each moment is given to you only once. You begin to understand it instinctively when you’re young, and more fully as you grow older. Every instance we get is singular. A small and unrepeatable pocket of time in our already short lives. Seeing life this way has always made me romanticize the way I move through it.