Three Understood

Three best friends.

A ring.


A toast.


Love.


This weekend I got to spend uninterrupted quality time with my two best friends, Ashley and Minyet. It's the first time all three of us have been in one place in two years. I always cherish these moments because when we reunite - after riding out years and crossing oceans and living thousands of stories - it's like we were never separated. This time our Ashley came home with a ring, given to her by a handsome Dutch engineer. We celebrated with a classy picnic in the Hocking Hills, complete with a champagne toast and heart biscuits.

She understood my wonders,
And listened to my dreams.
She listened to how I felt about life and love,
And knew what it all means.

Feeling 24

Another year older, another year wiser. Last night I celebrated my 24th - a delicious evening full of old friends and older friends followed up with some good ol' southern boot scootin' boogie. It was a fun time, but as the clock struck midnight on the eleventh day of the eighth month of the year of the ox, I felt a strange mix of contentment and discontent.

Twenty-four feels nothing like I once imagined it as a little girl. When you are 8 years old, 24 is fun and exciting. It's living in NYC. It's painting your favorite wall of your new apartment red and covering it with your favorite photos. It's juggling a schedule full of editor meetings, lunch dates and happy hours. It's feeling hopeful about the next step. What it is not is this.

It's not sleeping in the same bed you slept in as that 8-year-old girl. It's not scrolling through sparse job listings. It's not watching your friends move up in the world while you still remain clueless.

Yet this - what 24 should not be - feels so real. Along with 24 comes a wisdom few understand. You are still new enough in the world to possess a fresh perspective, a longing for the adventurous life. But you've been here long enough to comprehend the harsh realities of everyday living - that economies suck, that people are disappointing, that life isn't the fairytale dreamworld that you once pictured (though there's still that possibility it could be).

As I approach another year as a 1985 baby, I am no longer worried that the next step I take is right or wrong. Though the unpredictability of the future can be unnerving at times, I relish in the scenic route of life, knowing that I have the strength to cross the next bridge, however long, narrow and wobbly it might be.

I wanted to find a poem to include here that would celebrate another year of life, but they all ended up sounding cliche and cheesy. Instead, here's some words from Hafiz, to all you 20-somethings who aren't where you once thought you would be:

God
Disguised
As a myriad things and
Playing a game
Of tag

Has kissed you and said,
"You're it -

I mean you're Really IT!"

Now
It does not matter
What you believe or feel

For something wonderful,

Major-league Wonderful
Is someday going

To

Happen.

Photo courtesy Urban Spirit

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today's my mom's birthday so I made her, well, we'll called it a Tuscan style meal, complete with lasagna, cabernet sauvignon and sunflowers. For the cake, we had pineapple angel food with cool whip and blueberries. Happy birthday Mom! :)