the next month of my life will be spent figuring out what i’m doing with the months that will come after it. for the first time in a long time i’m healthy enough to have options— i can pursue dreams based on what my heart wants, rather than what my body will allow me to do. the three years between my college graduation and now have been an extended pause, one that has thrown curveball after curveball, a whole plethora of challenge and discipline and reward. eight months ago, i threw myself back into the work force following a completely different path than the one i had been carefully following for most of my life—  i started working as a bartender. it was a mistake. i was devoting every ounce of my energy to a cause that left me feeling soulless and exhausted at the end of each very long night. i didn’t have enough energy or optimism to ward off the negativity that runs rampant within the bar scene and it got under my skin. i was too tired and weighed down by all the bullshit that i struggled to pursue life as an artist and i consequently found myself becoming more and more of a Jaded New York Bartender— a rare and overwhelmingly angry breed of human— and less of a person with a future as bright and full of art (and, frankly, happiness) as the one i think i’m destined to have. it’s so easy to get sidetracked in the all-encompassing “here" that is new york in your twenties. 

it’s easy to care too much about what inconsequential people think, to let others’ opinions dictate your choices. it’s easy to become too sensitive, to say things you don’t mean, to get mixed into the wrong crowd, to forget what’s important and start worrying too much about money, about other peoples’ business.

right now, i’m taking a break and looking around. a month ago, i was ready to get out of the city, to leave the east coast, to start over somewhere new with my cozy little family, just the three of us. tonight, though, i’m feeling pretty content. 

what’s important is gus, this sweet little bundle of fur curled up next to me. what’s important is the sound of r’s guitar singing through the wall. our apartment is speckled with photographs of us that are old enough to be memories— those are important. not remembering exactly where we were or who we were with, but how happy and awake and alive we were back at the beginning of it all. that’s what’s important.

nothing is flawless. no one is perfect. but here is good. 

here is exactly where i’m supposed to be.