Hello again! Do you know what today is? Today is June 1st. Anybody want to tell me what that means? Anybody? Bueller? June 1st means that we are half way done with 2012. Can you even believe that??? Half way done with this year!! For some reason, that really hit me this year. 2012 is half gone, and what have I done so far?
Nick and I bought our first Christmas tree for our first Christmas in our first apartment (which may have technically been in 2011....but just barely!!), we celebrated our first Valentine's Day as a married couple, we took a road trip to Georgia for Nick's high school reunion. We went on the first camping trip of my adult life, and we visited the White Mountains (a first for both of us!!). We also did lots of (only slightly!!) smaller things, spent lots of time with family and friends, went on dates just the two of us, and ate lots of ice cream.That list is pretty impressive, and each memory on it makes me smile when I remember them.
BUT!! Being the person I am, nothing is ever quite enough. I always want to do more, to be more. I read an article this week in the Yale Daily News called The Opposite of Loneliness:
(http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/may/27/keegan-opposite-loneliness/)
If ya'll have a second, it's worth the read. It's short, I promise. Short, but insanely powerful. Part of that comes from the fact that the girl who wrote it was killed in a car accident the weekend after it was published. She was 22 years old, and the message in her article is such a wonderful one, but saddened by her much to early passing. My favorite lines are "But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. " and "What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have." These words are almost haunting, given that she did not make it to 30 to enjoy those amazing parties she was going to throw, and wasn't given the oppertunity to grow old and have fun. I think I would have liked Marina Keegan. A lot.
Reading her article made me think (as I'm sure it did to everyone!) about what I'm doing with my life. I have found the love of my life, and I married him. That's a giant checkmark in the win column. Every day while I'm sitting at work, I'm fantasizing about all the things I'd rather be doing. I want to ride in a hot air balloon with Nick. I want to skydive again. Nick and I want to travel the US and the world, seeing everything we can possibly see. I want to buy a house and have babies running around it. I want to see fireworks as many times as possible. I want to swim with sharks, but that's the last thing on my bucket list because sharks scare me more than anything, so I know that's the one that's gonna do me in!! I want to open up an etsy shop and sell things that I make. I want to learn Italian and Spanish. I want to meet Jonathan Kellerman. There are SO MANY things that I want to do (most of them with Nick!!), and Marina's article made me that much more determined to stop day dreaming about them and go DO THEM!!! Tomorrow night I'm leaving for Italy for 5 days. I'd say that's a pretty good start, even though the trip is for work and I can't bring Nick with me. :( But I'm going with a good friend that I work with, and while I'm there, I'm going to try to get out of my comfort zone. I'm also going to eat my weight in pasta and gelato.
I guess the point of this post, other than to get Marina Keegan's article out to a broader audience, is that life is so much shorter than we imagine. My mom died young. I lost a good friend when he was only 18. When it's your time, it's your time. You're going, ready or not. So go out for ice cream. Kiss your husband. A lot. Do the dishes later, play with your kids now. Take every vacation oppertunity you get, go see all those things on your bucket list that you put on there "knowing" you'd never cross off. Just.......be happy. If there's something making you unhappy, change it. Don't know how? Email me. I'll be glad to give it a shot. If any of you have some secrets you'd like to share about how you make the most of every day, I'd love to hear them!!
