List #5: Signs of Blooming

It has been five months since I last visited this little blog. I do this for myself, so I have no deadlines to meet or followers to entertain. During my time away, I traveled through Chile for a while, an experience so incredible that typed words in a small white box on a bigger white page could never do it justice. In South America, I sprained my ankle, got a mean toe infection, screwed up my knees, and generally hobbled around for a majority of my travels. While it sounds as if I crumbled, with every injury I was piecing myself back together again. I felt pain, yes, but I also felt joy and laughed heartily and ate way too much peanut butter and felt truly connected to my best friend and travel companion. I made guacamole with fresh paltas and spoke broken Spanish and floated in the saltiest water in the driest desert. I drank maté and ate chai ice cream and filled my belly with sunshine. I came home on my way to achieving wholeness. Finally, I thought. After what has seemed like an eternity of feeling empty, I was finally on my way to feeling full. 

Of course, it is never that simple. The only thing I know for sure is that I know very little; I should not have been surprised when what I thought was going to be my big break turned into another fall. While I returned home nearly two months ago, while I posted about a fresh start almost half a year ago, there are days when I feel like I am going nowhere. I have spent months applying for jobs, sending out resumes and cover letters like it is my profession. I am considering adding "Professional Job Applicant" under the Experience heading. I spend my days trolling the internet for teaching jobs and I spend my nights standing behind a wooden host stand, cleaning menus and showing upper-middle class folks to tables in a dimly lit restaurant. I watch a lot of Scandal and eat a lot of avocado and check my email a stupid amount. I am becoming a bit too comfortable with solitude. 

So, things are happening for me. 

I am living, but some days I feel more alive than others. I am slowly gathering the pieces, but what I am looking for is a life. And that's a tall order. Because there is no singular life, no one right way to live. The way I make my living, the way I make a life, that's on me. I am the creator- we all are. How scary and beautiful that is. I am so insanely lucky and blessed and privileged to even have a choice, to have a say in where my story goes next. There are too many in this world who are not afforded that opportunity, who don't get to be a Millenial who is finding herself because they have to be breadwinners now, no time to dawdle because there is work to be done. 

I grapple with such stagnancy and privilege every day. The only way I come up feeling okay about things is when I remind myself that I am doing the best I can. I am putting one foot in front of the other. I am working towards self-sufficiency. It is easy to feel as though nothing has happened since I last visited this little blog. But just like the flowers after these endless days of rain, there are signs that I am blooming. There are signs that life is taking shape. 

I am:

1. Running outside again 

2. Starting to date 

3. Making lists of things to look forward to

4. Finding joy in small things

5. Feeling excited about teaching again

6.Understanding I deserve better

7. Cherishing beautiful female friendships 

8. Embracing the beauty that is a bralette 

9. Going to therapy 

10. Learning that a good cry is nothing to run from 

11. Accepting the 23rd year of my life as the most tumultuous to date 

12. Wanting to spend Saturdays contentedly alone 

13. Trying my hand at baking 

I am a late bloomer in this freshman year of life, but I am in bloom nonetheless. Though I graduated nearly one year ago and have spent many days wondering where one Earth I am headed, I have to believe that I am growing up and out and into someone who will have direction and purpose and fulfillment. I am not there yet. But, there is beauty in this middle place: right before the petals open and what has bloomed shows itself off to the world.