Being with you is like breathing.

It’s like coming home.

Being with you is the reason I wake up.

The face I fall to sleep to.

It’s the smile I look forward to.

I love you. I love being with you. I love watching you grow. I love doing my average life with you.

I won’t amount to much. But being by your side makes it ten thousand times better. My life is so much more with you in it.

How lucky. How blessed. How the world had to turn out just for me and you to be sitting on this lounge together.

Every day you have a choice. You choose your emotions. And I know it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. I know the emotion is holding onto you with such a tight grip it feels like you can barely get a single breath in. Like the world is collapsing around you. Like you just want to scream.

But you have a choice.

It’s true now and it’s true in practice. Despite the whole world being against you, you do get to choose your emotion, your reaction, your attitude and your behaviour.

So you can either hold on or you can release.

Maybe you want to hold on. Maybe you want people to hear your screams. You want someone to hold you and say… I hear you and I’m here for you.

But unfortunately there’s not always going to be someone who can be there for you. You can’t rely on someone to be your punching bag, to be your shoulder to cry on. In a perfect world, sure… doesn’t that sound lovely…

But if you’re constantly using someone as a way to deflect those feelings and validated you… then you are never actually dealing with those emotions head on. And they will resurface. They will come out as deadly as they came in. You don’t want that. You don’t want to deflect.

I want you to deal. To face. To embrace. To run head on. Here is where the magic is. Here is where growth comes. Resilience.

You’ve faced that feeling and you’ve spent time with it. And now you’ll be better for it.

So I guess that’s why I’m here and not somewhere else. It’s scary and it hurts… but I’m done being angry at the world.

Your time on this Earth is limited. Stop acting like you have tomorrow to make your dreams come true. Today is the only chance you have.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a romantic. I love a fairy tale ending. I love drama. I love true love. I love to see people fight through anything… over come anything.

That is one half of me. The other is a realist. I have been hurt too many times now to know that love is forever. Nothing last forever. But that’s okay. I don’t need forever. I just need right now. I need to enjoy my moments. The present ones.

So that’s what I struggle with. Every day I’m faced with ideas. Ideas of people, of love, of how we picture our lives to turn out. The things we want to be, the things we wished could have been.

That is not the world we live in. Real life is full of things that I could have never prepared myself for. Miscommunication. Dishonesty. Manipulation.

So what are we supposed to do?

I will always be the person who sees things from every single point of view. To handle everyone’s emotions all at once. I will be the realist that you need when you are drifting too far away. I will be the one to be honest with you. I will be blunt. I will be harsh.

But above all… I will always have hope. Hope for something better. For love. For joy. For peace.

I live a tangled life. Constantly torn between Idea and Reality. My life will always be the chaotic mess that unfolds from listening to both sides. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Because that’s where the beauty is. In the chaos.

And just like that… the sun goes down. It feels like just minutes ago that the world was waking up, the day was just beginning. Intentions were being set, plans were in place… One second ago things were starting.

And then we blinked… and our time has come.

The day… as beautiful and elegant as it is… in all its glory… must come to an end.

So this is it. One chapter is over. The sun has come down and every effort we made to the day must now be washed away. Will today’s efforts effect the outcome of tomorrow? Maybe. Maybe not.

Maybe tomorrow is a fresh start. A new awakening. A new opportunity. A chance for the sun to shine even brighter than today.

How beautiful that we get another chance tomorrow. How beautiful that we got to enjoy today as long as we did.

How bittersweet it is that we can’t spend anymore time here today… for tomorrow is calling us… it’s time to let it in.

As I sit here writing this post I can look around my life and see so many areas that need fixing. So many things I want to do, behaviours I want to change. Honestly… it is a little overwhelming.

I’ve come to realise that I have a problem. I’m always in a hurry. I’m in a hurry so much that I really struggle to enjoy the moment… and believe me I try. I am grateful and I am mindful but within reason. I struggle to be in the moment for too long. I struggle with expectations and letting people down. I struggle with letting myself feel the things I’m feeling. I struggle to accept certain things and let things be.

I have excuses and reasons just like everyone else. Doubts. Fears.

I don’t really know what the point of this post is. If I’m being honest… I’m really struggling to define myself currently. The crisis feels barely there in our state anymore and so what am I left with? During COVID I was proud of myself for going to work every day. Proud of myself for losing weight. Now what? What do I have to be proud of? It’s nothing special anymore. I’m not doing any good deeds I’m just doing what I’m supposed to.

So as we head into a new season… with new beginnings and new adventures… this is what’s currently circling around in my brain. It’s absolute chaos in there.

I was listening to a podcast the other day and she was talking about weather she gets jealous or envious of girls in their 20’s, as she was in her 40’s. She said something that I have never really thought about before.

She said it’s not her time anymore. She had her time in her 20’s and now she has different things to look forward to in her 40’s. It really stayed with me because we are constantly looking forward. Looking forward to the weekend, to our birthday, to being older, wiser, richer.

But today is the only day that you will ever be this age again. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to spend your entire 20’s looking forward to only look back one day and wish you had done the things you could have only done in your 20’s. With your 20 year old body and 20 year old life.

I’m not trying to say that you can’t do certain things in your 30’s and 40’s. I have no idea what it’s like to be 30. I hope I can still do everything that I can do now.

All I’m trying to say is… our time is short. Shorter than we could even imagine. So what are you putting off? What are you going to do ‘tomorrow’ or ‘one day’? Why not do it today? Why not do everything you’ve ever wanted? Take all the chances. Take all the opportunities. Say yes to everything. Be all that you can be and all that you dream about.

Say what you think. Live with passion. Be the 20 something that you will look back on and think, damn she really did that!!

I know you might not believe me, but right now… it’s your time. Do the things you’ll be proud of one day. Now is your time.

How quick the year goes by. 365 days.

How fast our tiny life just floats past us. One minute it’s here and the next… well… you know the rest.

I hope today doesn’t float by you. I hope you appreciate every second of it. I hope today is the best day of your life. Today is the only day you’ll ever get.

What are you going to do with it?

This pain feels like it is going to last forever. It feels like this is the only life I have ever known and will ever know. What you see is all there is. All I can see right now is pain.

Every direction I turn I see pain. This is not the life I wanted. It isn’t the life I deserve.

But it is the life that I will earn.

A beautiful life is not handed to you it is earned. It is earned through hard days. Tears. Through tossing aside every single negative thought that enters your mind and continuing on anyway.

A beautiful life is an early morning. It’s a sore body. It’s long hours.

A beautiful life is not made through free time is is forged through time made work for you.

So today will be painful. But tomorrow will be beautiful.

A part of me is upset. I try not to beat myself up about it but honestly I am truly upset. I am upset that it took me the last few years to start reading again. I can’t believe I let all those years go to waste. What is the point of life if not purpose? Learning… striving… being better. For a few years I was stuck. I was happy doing the bare minimum. I wasn’t striving. But I wasn’t content. I had just accepted the mundane. I don’t know what made me open my eyes. For over a year I told myself I would go to the free gym classes and yet I never went. One day I went. I don’t know why that day was different. I wish I knew so that I could do it again but with different habits and experiences. I don’t know why one day when I was 17 I decided I was going to start losing weight. One day I was happy eating junk every day. The next I wasn’t. One day I was planning to go to gym, the next I actually did it.

I hope today is the day I start the thing I’ve been planning for a long time. I don’t know how or why the stars align when they do. I don’t know the pattern of my life. I don’t know if the universe is unfolding in perfect divine timing or if that’s just something I tell myself to make me feel better about my future.

So yes… I am upset that I wasted so many years. But I am also happy that I started when I did. This year has been filled with so much learning. So much knowledge. So much wisdom. So much energy. I am glad I started this year. I probably won’t stop being upset about my wasted time. It will always be inside me, deep down in a tiny corner of my brain. But I will not focus on that. I will focus the positive. I will look only at the good. I will continue to reinforce my good behaviours and strive for my positive mental attitude as often as possible. It is okay to be upset, but it is not okay to waste my energy on it.

So today I will keep reading. And hopefully tomorrow is the day that I start my next adventure.