windows down

When I have a rough day or things just feel more heavy than it seems like I can take, going for a drive is something that almost always brings me back to Earth. There’s something about playing a song that matters and sticking your hand out the window to feel the air while you’re driving…

Have you ever done that? Have you felt the wind pushing your fingers into new places while you’re rolling down a back road in your home town?

Or felt the way a moment feels new every time that cool fall air hits the palm of your hand while you’re driving through your new city? Watching the lights flick past you, sending shadows across the life lines of your fingers, street lights illuminating the creases in your knuckles. Falling in love with the way you can’t help but dance your hand around in the wind, feeling it give and take with each twist of your wrist. Out of all the things you could have touched that day, somehow the feeling of freedom in this moment makes you feel alive again. And even when you pull your hand back, you can still feel that slight tingle across your skin reminding you that you’re still there, that the air that feels so strong around you is a part of you, too.

Tonight there was a concert for a musician that I really love in town. I randomly saw on social media that there were a couple free tickets to the show at a shop that I love downtown. They hadn’t yet been claimed when I finally got there to check. So I got to stand in the crowded lower room of a theater and felt the floor move when everyone was singing along to the music. I got to make someone else’s night when they offered to take my photo in front of the sign outside and mentioned they were about to go in themselves and buy their ticket, but I had an extra and I offered it to them instead. There was a moment during the concert that Noah Kahan’s face just lit up when the whole room seemed to be connected in that song. In a season where nothing has felt like it was going right, tonight I felt okay.

I felt okay.

And I took the long way home after the concert to listen to more of this musician’s music with every window down. The highway opening up in front of me with nothing but a few hours of night left in my way. I’m so thankful that I got to feel the way my hand moves in the air when I’m driving at night. I’m thankful to feel the crispness of the beginning of fall on my face while i was walking home. I’m thankful for being alive to experience those little moments.

I hope you get to see these moments too.

I guess that’s all I have to say tonight. I’m just thankful for today.

Talk soon.

Grounded.

 

In my life, feeling grounded is something that I place a lot of significance in; it’s something that I desperately strive to feel on a day to day basis.

I recently made a post on my social media about feeling like where I was at in life was enough. About how thankful I am to be in this place that I’ve found myself in the present moment. Many of my thoughts are tailored around finding that feeling of being “okay” in whatever situation I’m in, mostly because if I don’t focus on that feeling, it’s too easy for me to become overwhelmed or overstimulated by the situation.

Lately I’ve been finding it easier to notice when I’m feeling grounded. I’ve been able to see the moment and breathe it in with less struggle than before. Realizing that I have been able to hang on to this feeling, however, has made me start to really question what it means for me to be grounded. I thought at first it was just the feeling when I wasn’t worried about what was happening or when things in my life were going “as planned”. I also thought that being grounded went hand in hand with me being in control of things in my life-or at least feeling like I was in control of them.

Let me really start by saying I was wrong.

Well, I was right in part, but mostly wrong. I was correct about thinking that I felt grounded when I was in control, but I was wrong in the assumption that what I was feeling was actually grounded.

The OED (my most favorite tool) helped me out on that one.

Grounded: a. Deeply or strongly founded; firmly fixed or established; resting upon a good basis. Chiefly fig. of immaterial things.

“resting upon a good basis”.

That’s what I’m feeling now. I’m not in control of my life any more now than I was a year ago, but I have a better understanding of myself and my foundation. I am more sure about who I am and who I want to be.

Lately my comfort zone has not been something that I would recognize if it was standing right in front of me, which is why I was wrong to connect the feeling of being grounded to having things go as I thought they were supposed to. I am saying “yes” to more things. I am giving myself a chance to find my own way while being true to who I am in my heart of hearts. I am learning to let the things that I want or need be bigger than my fear of failure or of heart break. I feel like where I am at is enough. I feel grounded and “firmly fixed-established”. Things are harder. I am more tired than I have been in a long time. But I am happier than I can remember ever being.

 

Things I need to remember right now:

I am in my season of growth. 

Where I’m at is enough. 

Saying no is okay.

Saying YES is okay.

Standing on your own two feet can be empowering.

Your heart can start to heal.

Progress happens-slowly, and then all at once.

 

I am grounded.