living in loveliness

Yesterday was a beautiful day. Yesterday was, in every other conceivable way, total crap. So when I got home, in a valiant effort to bounce back from said crapfest, I decided to go for a sort-of run. And by sort-of I mean that I have run exactly thrice since I decided I was going to pick up running again. So "running," by the end of said run, is pretty much just walking with enough gusto that my ponytail bounces a little. As long as the ponytail bounces, it still counts. At least I think so.

I love my little neighborhood. It's the kind of place that makes me want to write things and I love that about it. It was just dusk enough last night that as I bounced my way past all the lovely little houses, every so often I would catch a little glimpse of the lives that were being lived there. Kitchens that wouldn't be cleaned til the morning, flowers half-planted, Eeyore, Pooh and Piglet left on a skateboard in the middle of the sidewalk. I imagined marriages that were new there, fights being fought there, lullabies being sung there, dinners being made there. I imagined what summer would be like there. I wrote it all in my head. And then I got a little sad.

It can be a little discouraging to live in the midst of such cuteness. To be fair, sometimes being single looks like dancing at the Rockbar til my feet hurt and I do not hate it. Other times though I feel antsy to join the ranks of the settled, ready to be living in the loveliness too. Sometimes being patient sucks. Sometimes I imagine lives I'm not living yet I feel sad. That does not make for a pretty blog post. I'm not particularly proud of it. But it is honest. And we all know what happens when we're not honest.

If I'm not careful, I can camp out there. Looking in other people's metaphorical [or literal if you're a creepy voyeur like me] windows makes me want to throw things, honestly, because I get sick of waiting, sick of living for someday, sick of being patient. But sadness didn't stick this time because something else did instead. So much of my story is yet to be written. My lovely house is yet to be decorated, yet to be filled with marriage and kids and dinner and summer. Some days I will get impatient for what comes next. But while there's something to be said for being content with today [and I do so wholeheartedly try] there is also a beautiful sort of calm in the anticipation of what is to come. I stopped imagining other people's lives and instead, I basked in the hope of my own.

Before I knew it, I was too busy being excited to be sad.
And I bounced right on home to enjoy living in my very own loveliness, thankyouverymuch.