one of these days it's gonna be right soon, you'll find your legs and go and stay gone


In just over a week I will be turning 21!  It is impossibly exciting and scary all together. Although this summer has been terrible for the most part, I am excited to make 21 my best year yet.  Like most 20-somethings, I am at that suffocating in-between place in life.  Having just graduated from college, I took the summer off.  I had planned on travelling Europe and having adventures, but painful family matters kept pushing my plans farther and farther from sight.  I won't let that hold me down, though!  Everything happens for a reason, and even though that reason is often hard to understand in the moment, it is important to have faith.  You must have faith, girls!

So in the greatest leap of faith, I will be jumping out of a plane at 9,000 ft for my birthday!  After that, who knows what will happen!  It is taking immense strength at this point in my life to remain true to the person I am with the values I have. Shouldn't I be like everyone else? Go out? Party? Be in a relationship? Shouldn't I want what everyone else seems to want? Money? Security? Comfort?  The shoulds are always scrambling around my head, confusing me.  Fight back against them, my dears!  Live outside the norm! Do something exciting and different! Those that try to put you down for it are simply unhappy with their own un-lived lives.

It's funny. I'm in my 20's and I feel like I should be this grown up, adult-like person already! Society tricks you in to thinking you need to be a certain way by a certain age.  But we are still babies!  If not now, then when?  Why do we feel we need permission to live?

So stop asking for permission from others and give it to yourself!


...




I don't know what's going on anymore.
I'm sorry for disappearing, but my family has essentially turned itself upside down in a matter of weeks.
I can't even think.
This summer is a whirl of tears and crushing humidity.
I've pushed so many people away.  I feel guilty for wanting things.  I feel guilty a lot.
I've retreated so far inside my mind that I'm paralyzed.
Analysis paralysis.
Too many decisions, and I can't move forward.  My legs won't take me.
I'm waiting for some sort of sign from the universe that I know will never come.
Because that's my problem, I wait too long for life to happen, not realizing that life is now.
And I know, I know I need to push myself.
No more excuses.

So please, please realize this.
I'm saying this both to myself, and all of you out there that will read this:

  • Do not wait, that day will never come-it is NOW
  • If you are not scared, humiliated, embarrassed, making mistakes and failing, you are not LIVING
  • There is not enough time to worry about what other people think of you, besides, they are far too busy thinking about themselves.
  • Live for you, and the rest will come.

Jump


 Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.
-Paulo Coelho



 Keri Smith

  
I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don’t want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines, and sing out loud in the car with the windows open, and wear pink shoes, and stay up all night laughing, and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets, and throw parties, and eat ripe tomatoes, and read books so good they make me jump up and down.-Shauna Niequist 

Get up NOW and live
Buy the ticket
Hop the train
Kiss the boy or the girl
Let go of fear
Let love in
Take a deep breath
Jump