On the sixth anniversary of my first flight out of the country, I sit here typing away on my old MacBook, trying to figure out if I remember how to blog. I think to myself, “It’s just writing” — writing about my thoughts or a topic or my thoughts on a topic– and I know how to write. But my thoughts are everywhere. Not just because it’s late, which it is. Or because I’ve spent the last hour clearing the metaphorical cobwebs off this site, which I have. It’s because the topic I want to write about doesn’t have a definitive conclusion. No clear image to look forward to. No pretty ribbon to tie it up with. Apart from that, it’s a topic that if I really get into the nitty gritty of, I will have to face some emotions that come with it, and I’m not sure I’m completely ready to do so.
The topic is change. I’m at a point in my life where change is all around me. Even the leaves are changing. There’s change happening in my relationships with friends, family, and myself. There’s change happening in the lives of people I love. And while change is scary and uncertain, it’s the first time in a long time where change is something I’m craving.
Making the Middle Count (Again)
With change, there is almost always a beginning and an end. If there’s a change in your living situation, it might mean there’s the end of a lease and the beginning of life as a home owner — or a beginning in a new city. If there’s a wedding, it’s the end of life as one and the beginning of a bond you hope will last forever. If there’s a change in work, then it’s an end to your time in the previous role. It’s also the beginning of a new chapter in your career. A season finale and a season premiere. New characters are introduced, and storylines shift. This isn’t breaking news. It’s just something I’m reflecting on since I’m witnessing so much change around me.
As I cheer on the pending changes, I mourn the inevitable endings. I’m already nostalgic of life as we know it. It’s a feeling I recognize all to well thanks to when 2020 ended life as everyone knew it. The world shut down, and many of the things I found comfort and joy in were no longer options. I couldn’t travel. I couldn’t go to baseball games. I couldn’t go out dancing. I couldn’t hug a friend tightly. It was wild to think that just a month earlier, we had been going out for dinner without a second thought or visiting each other without fear of a potential exposure. There’s a saying in Spanish that says, “Cuando eramos felices y no lo sabiamos.” It’s usually in reference to a time you miss. “When we were happy and didn’t know it.” As late as the first weeks of March of 2020, we had been happy without knowing it.
I think this saying makes me emotional because it confirms the belief that we don’t always soak it all in during what we deem the little moments. We don’t realize how big the little moments are until we can no longer have them. Now, it’s been over two years since we were all sent home to do our part and prevent the spread of COVID-19. And about a year since things have become relatively “normal.” Some of us still work remotely. Some of us still wear masks in public places. Some of us still choose to get our groceries delivered over going shopping ourselves. And whether we made it out of that time relatively unscathed or hit hard, I think most of us learned the lesson that we must enjoy what we have and be grateful for all the moments, no matter how big or small we think they are at the time.
In The Office finale Andy says, “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.” While Andy is one of the most annoying characters, this is one of the lines that still hits me hard 9 years later. The truth is there is no way to know if today will be a time you’ll miss or forget or wish had never happened. The truth is it doesn’t matter. What does matter is making it count regardless.
As the endings of many things feel closer than ever, and with the lessons learned from the wild times of 2020, I want to be intentional about the middle and make it count, just as I set out to do six years ago. At the time, I was riding the end of a beginning. It wasn’t until January of 2016 that I realized I would actually end up finishing college in three years. By the end of May, life as I knew it ended earlier than planned, which meant I needed a post grad plan sooner than expected. Having never been out of the country and working all throughout college despite having financial aid, I had been able to save up enough to take a trip I had always dreamt of. Traveling and learning about the world became the middle between the end of my college career and the beginning of true adulthood. I documented most of those three months right on this site. After I traveled back, I wrote a few pieces but didn’t make much of the every day or the “big days.” Which brings me to why I’m writing this on here in the first place. As a way of holding myself accountable, and with the goal to share hope and light, I want to once again write about the people I meet, the places I see, and the lessons I learn.
As I said before, there’s no real conclusion here. Just a gal spilling her reasons for reintroducing this space to those who stumble upon it. So I’ll leave you with my final thoughts on change.
Change is near and unavoidable. And with change usually comes some amount of uncertainty. But uncertainty can’t take away our gratitude or our ability to love or our ability to find the good. We can shift confusion to grace, hurt to love, fear to faith. We can find joy and comfort and beauty in the little things. That’s the goal here. Whether it’s while I’m traveling or finding the beauty in the ordinary, I hope you’ll once again join me on this journey of making the middle count.