I love mornings where I don’t have to be anywhere.

I love when the spaciousness of time runs into rivers of imagination—so potent and wide f*cking open I can taste it on my tongue. It’s such a unique flavor. Almost like rain, almost like sun, very much like a jolt of cool, fresh air when you drive fast through mountain roads and it’s all green and trees and there is no one.

The thoughts. The worries. The goddamn insufferable what-ifs. They swirl endlessly, don’t they?

They echo loudly at first, yes…but right now, no one has questions to ask you. Things they need. The time is yours and yours alone.

So claim it. 

This is what I tell myself…

Claim it and savor every ounce of soul-squeezed, sun-shimmering, gut-wrenching, beautiful pleasure.

As these thoughts braid together, it lands me in the arms of the things I love. Of a blue sky ripped open of only thoughts and ideas that just feel good. What a revolutionary thing.

I love walking through the streets of strange cities with absolutely no destination in mind. The pleasure of wandering is so intense, so full of awe. My arms loosen, wide open to embrace possibilities and spontaneous adventures that casually make themselves known.

I love making coffee and taking forever to drink it. I love the smell, the taste of it, and how my brain works when I have just a little too much caffeine.

I love floor-to-ceiling windows that make me feel like I’m outside. Like I’m a cat perched, ready to pounce, watching the world go by below me.

I love slow, deep conversations about hard and vulnerable things.

I love making out for hours and how time just splits open and electricity takes over our entire bodies.

I love quiet moments where no one needs anything from me and I can finally hear myself.

Through the fog and glitter of all the expectations of life, all the things I am to other people — there is this solidity.

This fire. This burning. This deep, deep quiet. This knowing. This unmistakable me-ness. 

I forget about that.

I get so easily distracted, lost swimming in the currents of life: giving, caring about how everyone else feels, thinking, and doing chores, tasks, stupid errands.

So many things to do. None of them are really that important. Not like this.

I love being pulled back into the vortex of what really matters to me. Of what it actually feels like to experience my heart banging hard in my chest when I am scared and also happy and just completely, utterly alive.

In returning to my bones in the silence of a slow morning, there is a subtle fragrance. A sweet perfume fills the air with the scent of stars and lilacs.

It’s tender and strong and gives away to deeper sort of permission. To access what I need and own it.

And then to take the next, most vital (and scariest) step—to speak it.

It unbinds the chains of fear, acting carefully so I never disrupt or disappoint anyone.

Life outside of the cage of a “good” and “perfect” woman is so different. And in these moments, I realize it is really still quite foreign to me. The pangs of learning a new way and how it’s still painful to tend to myself. It is scary. And it is so powerful.

Moments where I get to crash into my own heart are cosmic. They are everything to me. I dance in them for seconds that slip through my fingers entirely too quickly.

I conjure ideas of how to make this deep feeling of freedom last forever, knowing full well that it’s just not possible. And that’s why these fleeting moments, jotted down furiously on the page, are so goddamn precious in the first place.

It’s not about forcing every moment to feel like this, but it’s about seeing the impact of fully experiencing these moments. Seeing how they ripple out in my life.

Seeing how they become strings that reach out me when I am feeling lost or confused or broken, just so human that it hurts.

What is it, in the tired, crumpled moments, to be moved by our own magic?

To recall something within ourselves that is wild and wise?

I don’t know. But I sure as hell plan on finding out.

~

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