I remember the first few months after I graduated college as one of the most difficult transitions I've experienced. For the first time in my recallable life, I was no longer a student, no longer measured my life in semesters and breaks, no longer had any clear goal or purpose.

My life felt like it was on pause, like I was in a holding pattern, biding my time until for the "next big thing" happened. After expressing this to a friend (the beauty of a good community), she shared a passage by author Shuana Niequist from her book Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life.

As she was reading, I felt like my own thoughts were being spoken from another's mouth.

Fast forward a few years and her words still resonate. I wanted to share them with you, both so you can get a better understanding of where I am writing from, and also in the hopes that you may be encouraged to actually live in each day and not pass through them to the next big adventure.

“I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself, the one my mind could see so clearly. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized. Then the married person, then the person I’d become when we have kids. For twenty years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin.

And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.
I love movies about “The Big Moment” – the game or the performance or the wedding day or the record deal, the stories that split time with that key event, and everything is reframed, before it and after it, because it has changed everything. I have always wanted this movie-worthy event, something that will change everything and grab me out of this waiting game into the whirlwind in front of me. I cry and cry at these movies, because I am still waiting for my own big moment. I had visions of life as an adventure, a thing to be celebrated and experienced, but all I was doing was going to work and coming home, and that wasn’t what it looked like in the movies.

John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat.

The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the Heisman or become the next American Idol. But even that football player or that singer is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearl. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies.

But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that move-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of use will ever experience.” 

-Shuana Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life.

Sorry for the prolonged silence! 

Having a blog has shown me how bad I really am at time management. 

This post has been sitting in my drafts folder for days now but it kept getting put off. 

Before we get too far into August for a July recap, though, I want to share some pictures from a vacation I took earlier last month. 

I had a few days off work for the 4th so I took the opportunity to visit a dear friend from college who now lives in  Washington, D.C.. 

I then had a few days of business meetings in New York and finished the whole adventure with a wonderful weekend in Yosemite visiting another friend.

It was my first time on the East Coast so needless to say I was very excited! 

Did you know that there is a difference between capitol (the building itself) and capital (the city that is the center of government? Cue confusion for the entire trip.

Since it was my first time in D.C., we celebrated the 4th like good tourists. We watched the rehearsal of the Capitol Concert the night before, went to a reading of the Declaration of Independence in front of the National Archives and baked in the sun while watching the National Independence Day Parade.

The next day we also enjoyed a hike in Maryland. The East Coast is gorgeous!

After a few wonderful days, I took the train up the New York City for a few days of business meetings. I fell in love with rail travel after a trip I took to England a few years ago and this train ride was no exception. 

My first time in the Big Apple. New York has such an amazing food scene I could spent my entire time eating my way around the city. One of my favorite finds was The Laughing Man, a coffee shop with a community development goals founded by Hugh Jackman. I was a repeat customer of their amazing Flat White and gluten-free biscotti.

On my last full day in the city, I took the subway from where I was staying in Tribeca up to Central Park. The park is beautiful and huge!

After New York, I finished my vacation with a few days visiting another friend in Yosemite.