Open Heart

It was today, upon entering Manhattan on the R train that things begin to settle.

When we last spoke, my life was, for all intents and purposes and for the matter of simplicity, pretty great. Things were going exactly as I wanted, and I was right where I thought I needed to be. I had a steady job I didn't necessarily care for, complete with dental, biweekly direct deposit, and a crippling sense of my youth slipping away under the facade of adulthood – pretty standard, by all accounts.  I had an active social life, complete with random encounters with that guy I kept running in to, or the girl I swore I would stop drinking with. I had a calendar overflowing with commitments I could honor or dishonor if I wanted, and a slew of dating profiles floating out amongst the masses and interwebs. I had a bookshelf filled with future reads, a fridge packed with food that I never touched, updated resumes hiding on my work computer, and piles of papers in a “to be sorted” file that continually grew until it became a “to be sorted” box.  My room was too small for my bed and my tiny Brooklyn apartment was too cluttered. I had roommates I adored and would take impromptu drunken-stupor-like walks from the village to Brooklyn across the Williamsburg bridge, entering the land of Never Never Land once more.

And then, as the infamous line states, everything changed.  Only this time, I am the one who changed everything.  As a recap, last summer, I was unhappy.  I was not in a good place, physically or mentally.  After an approximately one and a half month period of a not-so-attenuating depression and unintentional ten-pound weight loss, I decided I was done feeling sorry for myself.  I looked at my life and I asked myself two very simple questions: Why am I doing the things I am doing?  What do I want my life to look like?  Blast some girl-power-self-inspiring playlists (and maybe some 90’s era angst-y Lillith Fair) through the speakers and follow along.

I walked into October as one person, and emerged in June as another. Yet along the way, I stumbled into an old version of myself I thought I had lost, and really missed very much. I find that now, I'm rediscovering my zest, my drive, my motivation, mojo, and essence. It's all very esoteric and bizarre and wonderful and, for the first time in maybe 2 years, I feel genuinely happy.  Happy with myself, happy with where I am, happy with where I’m headed.  I was too distracted for too long - too overwhelmed by what I thought I was supposed to be doing, and less focused on what I should have been doing: discovering myself, enjoying my life, exploring my 20s, smiling at strangers and the occasional metaphorical dancing in the rain, if you will.

At the risk of sounding conceited, I’m really quite proud of myself.  In the past year, I have done things I never thought I would do.  I’ve said yes more than I’ve said no; I’ve explored new places and new surroundings without fear; I’ve changed jobs, twice, and not looked back; I’ve re-inspired myself and re-engaged myself in living the life I always wanted to live; I’ve surrounded myself with the positive and removed all the negative; I found what I (thought I had) lost and reclaimed it; I thought about what I wanted my life to look like, and I made it happen.

 

But most importantly, I took back what I so foolishly let slip away from.  I reclaimed my life as my own.

After all the ups and the downs, the hills and the slides, I feel like, maybe now, things are settling down to a happy medium.  Life is just returning to a normal. A normal I'm not sure I remember. A normal at the opposite spectrum of what I ever believed to be possible.

It’s simply incredible what can happen when you open your heart.

The Little Things

Lately, I've been trying to focus on the little things.

Walking to the L with confidence.

Blasting the new Regina on my morning commute.

Taking the ferry home from work.

New experiences.  New people.  New boundaries.  New mindset.

Eating a fresh beefsteak tomato - in one sitting.  Raw.

Accidentally spilling an entire waste container filled with bright blue, yellow, and pink ink from the copy machine all over myself.

A new phone cover, courtesy of Vera Bradley.

A Mr. Softee dip cone.

Having a conversation with a lonely older woman on the boat ride home.

Seeing my apartment building from the water.

Spending 3 hours eating and chatting in a famous-but-new-to-me pizza joint in a neighboring neighborhood.

Summer beers garnished with oranges.

Walking through the lit up park on a late summer night.

Stooping.  It's a thing.

The blue moon.

Rediscovering an old dress.

Rediscovering myself.

Driving with the windows down singing at the top of your lungs.

Walking past a kid playing with a 6 weeks old white kitten.  The same kid you walked past the week before, playing with the same kitten.  The kitten is bigger.

Watching Strong Bad Emails at work

Not changing the station when The Thong Song comes on the radio.  And remembering all the words.

Finding and loving new music.

Realizing you have 934 individual purchased songs in your iTunes.

Knowing where you are supposed to turn right, but going straight instead.  And continuing to drive.

Finding the entrance to a secret beer garden.

Learning about a secret bar, that is located behind a secret door in a secret phone booth with a secret dial code.

Retrieving the last thing that smells of you.

A sleeping kitten.

Learning that everything, and I do mean everything, is about timing.

A train ride to Moms new home.

A rainy train ride back with a good book and a new giraffe.

Finding the first fall leaf on the ground.

Noticing that the pink buildings I used to pass on my long NJ commute are still pink

Sitting on my giant roof, staring at the sky, the moon, the planes flying by.  Not seeing stars.  Knowing I know just where to go to find them.

Someone painting the word DREAM on the door to the roof in big bold capital letters.  DREAM.

Noticing the forgotten on my walks home, and finding the extraordinary in the ordinary - the things unseen or unnoticed.

Catching up with old friends.

Catching up with new friends.

A hug and a kiss from a Sweet Caraline

A hug and a kiss from Mommy.

How nothing ever changes.

How everything changes.

Spending the last summer weekend with family and friends, eating and drinking, barbecuing and laughing, getting eaten alive by mosquito's and not knowing it until the following morning.

Finding the moments of happiness in between all the rest.

Expunging the negative to make room for the positive.

Enjoying a night of complete inner peace, and hoping for many more to come.