For Nights When You Need a Light House

Little rusty...let's take it a litttttllleee  easy on me eh...

Dusting myself off.

After college, I had accepted that fact that things were never going to be that way again.  The same way every student realizes that the consistency of the past four are inconsistent with the new. The expiration date comes and you've got to go. 

You laugh when they tell you you wont be ready, and cry when they make you.

I'm old enough to understand I know absolutely nothing......except this: you are going to stress yourself out. You are definitely going to have a certain degree of a meltdown. You will go through waves of self loathe and moments of peace. You will literally go through tidal waves of chaotic confusion. I dont know if it was my first job (gateway to hell), or when fall showed up and reminded me of brick roads and the smell of my favorite Miami sweaty bar.... but I literally was touching fray ends of electrical cords. 

One of my soul sisters,  who only is a year older, but 20 years wiser told me this:  Nothing.makes.sense when you're 23 and 24. You will cry, stress out, and then you need to laugh it off. 

That girl didn't know how right she was.

One  other small thing that saved me... while I was in college,  every time I found or saw something that interested me whether it was an assignment,  a lecture, person, article, blog, location, book, hidden library spot, something chiseled in a desk, etc.. I would write it down and find out why it intrigued me. I bought myself a tiny notebook and I carried it with me everywhere. ..literally.. . everywhere.... my friends laughed at me for how weird I was about it.

 I would forget my ID before I would forget my notebook.

I still have it. Oh yeah, I carry it around with me like it's some sort of roadmap. It's pages of complete randomness: quotes, names, my favorite dog breed, short passages in books, tidbits of conversations I've heard (where did ya think accolades One, Two and Three came from) Anything that made my ears perk would be written in my notebook

I never read through it until I was trapped in the car between two broad shouldered brothers, and nothing but corn fields for five hours.

But being their arm rest left me with nothing to do but read. That little leather binded notebook... saved me.

It's. how. I. got. here.

I never believed it more so than now you land in certain places, at certain times, to meet certain people, to change certain things. You will go places or do things throughout that time that hit you differently, but remind you of something or someone. The first time I stepped on my college campus was the first time I knew I would be ok being far(ish) from home, and I could do it. There was an instinctual feeling about being in Oxford that made my heart pound. The same instincts I feel now living in a new city. I felt that same heart race when I got to New York. Reminders, are everywhere. The things I wrote down, the things I once noticed, the things that surrounded me everyday that I've always loved. I find them here, they make me... find me  

My best advice is to pay attention. The pages I wrote are .dots. to roadmaps. The snippets I wrote looks like organized chaos that makes no sense-- until it starts to make sense. If you go and search for the randomness that intrigues you-- it finds you right back. 

If you always have it together, and if you got everything you wanted early in the game, you would get bored.

Be hungry, foolish, write, scribble and laugh when you lose your sanity.

Dedicated .You. know who you are. 

-xoxo-