California

It was a little too cold, not quite beach weather. We were lying in the sand, and he asked me if I was a mountain or beach person. I snuggled into my sweatshirt, and protested that I couldn't possibly choose. He took my hand and pulled me up. He had a Cheshire Cat smile and teeth that were perfectly straight and a little too white. He smoothed my hair behind my ears, and stroked my flushed cheeks with his thumbs.  He told me I didn't have to pick; that the mountains and the water wait for us, whenever we need them. I grinned, partly because it was a really cheesy thing to say but mostly because he smelled good.

We talked over sushi. Him, going into great detail about his recent series of relationships. Me, interjecting occasionally and pretending to be interested. I had an early morning flight to catch, so we decided to make it an all nighter. Karaoke, followed by coffee and cards. He grabbed me on the sidewalk and swung me around to the music playing in a nearby bar. I contemplated what it would be like to love like this. A series of cross-country boyfriends, stolen moments in my favorite cities, leaving little bits of my heart scattered by the ocean and mountains. Compartmentalizing the things I liked about each one, until I had what felt like something whole.

He dropped me off at the airport and we stood on the curb and hugged. I noticed the lines around his eyes, the ones that had appeared in the 10 years since I had last looked at his face. I immediately thought of my own wrinkles and wondered if he had noticed the same changes in my face. We didn't make any promises to call, and that was okay. I collapsed into my seat and fell asleep before the plane even left the gate. 

It felt good to come home and not worry about what would come next. To not analyze every part of my trip and replay every part of our conversation. To just be with somebody in that moment, and share a little bit of life. 

My feet aren't planted firmly on the ground just yet. And although I don't know exactly what I'm looking for, I'm not sure that I have it in me to be a frequent flyer kind of lover. But for now, I'm enjoying living here, up in the air. 

On Storytelling

I haven't been around much lately, but only because I have been focusing on some other projects that popped-up. I'm planning to make some changes to this blog in the coming weeks, and move the entire thing over to a new website. More to come on that.

In the meantime, I have been thinking about the story that I'm living. I attended a conference a few weeks ago that was led by one of my favorite authors. Much of the discussion was around taking risks and living the story that one feels compelled to live. I have been thinking a lot about my own story since the conference, and what that looks like for me.

At the conference, I met a lovely mother and daughter who I spent one day of the conference with. They were from Texas, and very much embodied the stereotype of a southern lady. I have lived in Nashville for 10 years, and I am a bit skeptical of the southern lady types; I found in some cases the southern charm was a facade for judgment and cattiness. But these two were different, and I felt it immediately. They accepted me without question, and I felt comfortable enough to spend an entire day with them. We shared coffee, and talked about our lives back home.

What struck me the most about this mother and daughter was how open and accepting they were of one another. The daughter was about 20, and had told me that she had decided not to go to college. I was surprised to hear that her mom had encouraged her kids to find their own path, even if it meant that college wasn't included. I don't know a lot of parents who accept a kid's decision to do a little self-exploration before deciding what they wanted to do with their lives. It was refreshing, and they seemed to come from a very loving and accepting home. The daughter also had great stories about traveling the world, helping others, and learning about herself.

I often think about how my life might have been different if I had followed my instincts and travelled before I settled in a job and school. I come from a family of very practical mid-westerners. If you didn't go straight into college, then you had to go to work. There was no period of self discovery or globe-trotting allowed; those were the kinds of things that whimsical or abundantly wealthy people did. While I don't have regrets about the way my life has turned out, I do wonder about the story I'm living.

I have dreams that go beyond the my corporate job. I have dreams that are small and big, dreams that will require a lot of work and dreams that require very small changes. What I realized from the new friends that I made, and from the conference overall is that dreams are what make my story meaningful. They're the glue that holds together the seemingly mundane parts of life. They're the things that test our resilience, character, and ambition.

I feel like this new chapter is one that has been slowly unfolding over the past few years. There are definitive changes in my life that had to happen to lead me to a place where I was ready to jump, ready to take a risk and follow my dreams. So here goes.