a quarter of a century through life, I’ve had some pretty amazing moments. last year was one of the best: I traveled the world, got engaged, continued my career and accomplished so many dreams.
and while a part of me wishes that I could go back and relive all of these memories, the other part of me looks back with so much joy and excitement for the future.
of course the joys of last year weren’t without their struggles, but through the ups and downs, I have not only found contentment, but different kind of love for life. there are so many more places I want to travel, art I want to create, connections I want to make, and things I want to accomplish. there is so much more life that I can’t wait to live and deep down I know, the best is yet to come
the moments we live for
a month into 2022, it might seem a little late to be looking back on 2021. but sometimes, life moves pretty fast, and we have to stop and remind ourselves to pause and take a breath.
and to be quite honest, there were so many good moments last year that i had to share. better late than never right?
from reuniting with my boyfriend after being about for 438 days to spending the summer in europe (canceling my flight so i could stay even longer) while finishing up grad school and graduating (again) to visiting my best friend and exploring colorado for the first time, there were so many good moments.
so many pure moments.
although this year had it’s share of ups and downs (as does every year), these moments reminded me of what makes life worth it. sometimes, it seems like there is a pressure to be living a picture-perfect life. but i think the truth is that we have to go through the difficult, uglier parts of life in order to feel the good moments to their fullest.
and when those picture-perfect moments happen, it is okay to enjoy them to their fullest.
these are the moments we live for.
all we have is now
every year I pick a mantra or some saying that sums up my life for that year.
in 2018, I chose “here’s to the nights we felt alive,” reminding myself to embrace the moments that truly made me feel like I was living. in 2019, I chose “dreaming with my eyes wide open” because the year was one of the best of my life and so many amazing things happened.
then 2020 happened. (insert scary music)
at first, I wasn’t really sure what to make out of this crazy year. I mean soooo much happened. but at the same time, it felt like nothing happened. coming off of an amazing 2019, I felt like 2020 was kind of disappointing. now, it wasn’t all bad, there were many blessings in this difficult year. but I also just felt like I hadn’t done enough. I didn’t feel like I had accomplished anything.
then it came to me in one of my favorite phrases: “all we have is now.”
because if 2020 taught me anything, it’s that nothing is for certain and nothing is guaranteed. we are not promised a single second of our lives, so the most important thing that we can do is embrace today.
all we have is the moment that we are in right now.
2020 was a crazy year. but it did remind me that some of life’s most beautiful, amazing, incredible moments are right in front of us.
it is in the little things. the connections with others. going on drives. watching the sunset.
life isn’t always about living big, waiting for the next amazing thing to happen. it’s about making the most of what we have, right here, right now.
because, at the end of the day all we really have is now.
we can always worry about tomorrow or reminisce on yesterday, but at the end of the day all we have is now.
and that is still pretty amazing.
The Best is Yet to Come
Lately, I’ve been feeling stuck.
Stuck at home. Stuck away from seeing my friends and other loved ones. Stuck from being about to go out and do a lot of the things that I want to do.
Kind of like Rapunzel in her tower, now spending most of my days wondering “when will my life begin?” (which, ~side note~ when I said I wanted to be like Rapunzel I meant the part about having 60-foot long hair with magical healing powers not the being stuck in a tower).
But most of all, I feel like I have been stuck from being able to live the life that I want to live and stuck from becoming the person that I am meant to be.
I’m sure many of you, like me, have also been feeling this same sort of “stuck” feeling. And I’m sure that most of are you are just simply tired of it.
Tired of not knowing when this will end and wondering when things will go back to “normal” (whatever that means anymore). Tired of watching people not taking it seriously and pretending like everything is fine. Tired of all of those social distancing and mask-wearing rules (even though it is what needs to be done right now).
So first of all, let me just start by saying your feelings are completely valid and I get it.
I can’t help but reminisce on a time when things were “normal.”
When we could hang out with friends, go on trips around the world, and simply go outside without fear of getting sick of be a vector that infects someone else.
For me, it was also a time when I truly felt like I was living out my best life. A time when I couldn’t dream up a better reality than the one I was living.
Traveling the world, exploring places I never knew I needed to see, falling in love with being alive, and knowing that I had the best years of my life to look forward to.
Then REALITY CHECK.
The universe had different plans and a different timeline.
At first I was really upset, wondering how any of this was fair. How was it fair that during the best years of my life, all of that was taken from me, and suddenly I had to put all of my dreams and plans on hold? I thought I had been doing everything right to create the perfect life that I wanted to live. How could this be far that there is nothing I can do about it?
I felt stuck from being able to achieve my goals and live my life to the fullest. But then I realized the thing is, what I was really most upset about was how my supposedly perfect plan got ruined.
And that’s really the thing with plans. Plans change.
Our plans are nothing more than a guide for our goals.
It wasn’t that I was prevented from achieving my goals or living my best life, it was that I now have a different timeline on which to achieve them.
While this doesn’t immediately take away these feelings of being stuck and tired, it can serve as a reminder that if the plan doesn’t work, we are to change the plan not the goal.
I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason. There are greater things at work than we could ever know about, and those plans are much greater and better than anything we could have dreamed of. And the cool thing is, we are on that timeline, not our own.
The best is yet to come.
Rather than seeing ourselves as being stuck where we are, we must see ourselves as being in the right stage right now, to get to our goals and even better future. Rather than being kept from our goals, we have just been redirected onto a different path to where we are meant to be.
Even still, having patience is difficult (I’ll admit I’m not always the most patient person in the world). So it is also important to remind ourselves of all of the blessings, lessons, and growth we are experiencing in this stage of life right now, even though we may be tired of it.
For me personally, I have gotten to spend invaluable time at home with my family. I have gotten time to relax in my normally chaotic life. I’ve been given the opportunity to go to grad school, improve my photography, and begin publishing my design work. And maybe most importantly, I have been reminded of how precious the gift of life is, and to focus on the things in life that really matter.
While this time may not have been exactly what I had planned, it has given me many things that I am truly grateful for, and it has given me hope in that the best is truly yet to come.
So, while you may feel like you’re stuck dreaming instead of doing, know that it won’t be like this forever, and there will be a time (the perfect time), where you can turn all of your dreams into your reality. It might be on a different timeline than you had planned, but you still have a wonderfully bright future ahead.
The best is yet to come.